The main stem of the Colorado River holds a large
reservoir known as Mead.
Hoover Dam, which formed Lake Mead, is located in Black Canyon in the Mojave Desert about
30 miles east of Las Vegas, NV.
Lake Mead, when at full capacity, is the largest reservoir in the United States in terms of
volume and second largest in terms of surface area, behind only Lake Powell.
It has a storage capacity that is enough to hold the entire average annual flow of the
Colorado River for a period of two years.
However, it is experiencing a historic drought, with the river and its reservoirs in crisis.
The region's economies are suffering as the region's water supply dries out.
However, declining water levels have uncovered previously hidden or lost things, some of
which have serious implications for our well-being.
What is going on with Lake Mead, and why is it drying up?
What sinister secrets and terrifying discoveries await underwater?
Let's find out in today's video.
Las Vegas is famed for its brilliant neon lights, which attract a lot of fun seekers.
However, many revelers are unaware that Sin City's water supply comes from Lake Mead,
which is in significant trouble.
While numerous states rely on Lake Mead for water supplies, the lake is not natural one.
Native American cultures lived in the area as early as 10,000 years ago.
Back then, the Colorado River flowed freely in a wetter, cooler environment.
However, when the legendary Hoover Dam was built, the Colorado River had to be slowed
and re-routed in order to deliver water to the expanding region.
Lake Mead was formed as a result of this process, which filled the surrounding area with water.
And Lake Mead is immense!
The Lake Mead recreational area encompasses 1.5 million acres and includes not just the
lake but also Lake Mohave, Las Vegas Bay, and nearby regions.
When full, Lake Mead stretches 65 miles from Hoover Dam to Pearce Ferry.
It has a maximum width of 9.3 miles and an extremely uneven shoreline that stretches
over 550 miles.
Lake Mead is made up of four big deep but linked basins that cover deep gorges and their
sheer walls along the historic Colorado River channel; these basins are Gregg, Temple, Virgin,
and Boulder.
Because the waters within the four basins preserve the features of their sources, they
are ecologically unique.
The lake also has four narrow Canyons: Iceberg, Virgin, Boulder, and Black, as well as a 32.9-mile-long
Overton Arm that extends south from the Virgin and Muddy Rivers to the Virgin Basin.
Furthermore, Lake Mead, like Hoover Dam, crosses state lines; aboard a boat, you can cross
the border between Nevada and Arizona multiple times.
Lake Mead National Recreation Area attracts over 8 million recreational visits per year,
with roughly half of all tourists coming from Southern California, with the remainder coming
from Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and other Western states.
Lake Mead, on the other hand, is more than a park and recreation area; it was established
to provide water for the influx of inhabitants and visitors to Las Vegas and the surrounding
areas, as well as a means of irrigation.
Extended periods of low precipitation result in less water collecting in Lakes Mead and
Powell, as well as less snowfall in the Rocky Mountains to melt and drive the river downstream
during warmer months.
Aside from that, because too much water was allotted when the Colorado River compact established
state distributions a century ago, less water has always flowed through the system than
the original agreement intended.
Initially, each state was allowed to take a certain amount of water from the river each
year.
To be clear, this quantity allowed states to flourish and expand over a century.
The quantity, however, was based on what scientists later proved to be an inaccurate assessment
of the river's flow, causing development to outstrip the available water to support what
was there.
America is poised to pay the price for its short-sightedness, and the impacts of Lake
Mead drying up are already being felt.
The US Department of Interior was compelled to declare a water shortage in the lower Basin
in 2021, mandating cuts for the first time under emergency standards set in response
to the 2007 drought.
Tier 1 shortage cutbacks notably impacted Arizona and Nevada, which may face major reductions
in water allocations when Tier 2 shortage rules go into effect later this year.
More cuts were announced earlier in response to severely low reservoir levels at Lakes
Mead and Powell.
Arizona was allotted 21% less water than it would normally receive for next year to compensate
for the water loss.
Nevada and Mexico will each lose 8% and 7%, respectively.
As states take serious steps to conserve resources, the drought has already resulted in practical
changes.
Over 12 billion dollars from President Joe Biden's infrastructure law and the newly passed
inflation reduction act have been set aside to strengthen Western Water and Power infrastructure
and solve drought-related issues.
Water cops now patrol homes in southern Nevada looking for waste offences; people are now
prohibited from tending decorative grass.
In Arizona, the majority of the savings are obtained from a canal that supplies 80 percent
of the state's population and without which the key agricultural sector, as well as cities
like Phoenix and Tucson, could not have grown to their current sizes.
California, on the other hand, avoided federal budget cuts in both years.
The Colorado River supplies between a quarter and a third of the total water supply to the
southern area of the state, with the state receiving the biggest annual allocation.
Water is diverted from the river and channeled via two large canals that pour into Southern
California, providing irrigation and hydroelectric power to the region's 600,000 acres of farmland.
However, this does not mean that California is without water concerns; even with federal
assistance, California's agriculture industry is suffering significant losses owing to a
lack of water.
As Northern California runoff dropped, state irrigation districts sent less water to southern
counties.
With decreasing allocations, some farmers are experimenting with conservation measures,
while many have decided to reduce acreage and produce fewer crops instead.
With the lake drying up, a more interesting twist takes place in the form of a discovery
on the exposed lakebed that would be invisible to the untrained eye.
Scientists at UNLV have uncovered sedimentary rock mixed with volcanic ash that hasn't been
seen since the 1930s.
So, what is it about these rocks that excites UNLV scientists?
Many of the uncovered deposits contain ash from volcanoes as far away as Idaho, Wyoming,
and California, according to an examination of the exposed rock.
The collected ash also rained down on Southern Nevada roughly 12 million years ago, according
to researchers.
“Ash from even moderately explosive eruptions can travel hundreds of miles from the source,
blanketing entire areas with anywhere from a centimeter to several meters of the heavy
material,” said Eugene Smith, a UNLV emeritus professor of geology.
Scientists found evidence of many volcanic eruptions that occurred millions of years
ago in areas such as the Snake River Plain-Yellowstone area, the Southwest Nevada volcanic field,
and the Ancestral Cascades, which include Mount Saint Helens.
The most recent ash identified amid the sediments came from a 32,000-year-old eruption.
According to academics, this raises serious concerns because even a few millimeters of
ash, especially when wet, can become extremely heavy and knock down power and telecommunications
lines, as well as block roadways.
Even moderately powerful volcanic eruptions can send ash hundreds of miles away, blanketing
areas several meters away with heavy debris.
Recent eruptions have demonstrated that a few millimeters of moist ash can impede power
transmission.
When inhaled, the ash's tiny but sharp grains offer a serious health danger.
“These ashfall events can disrupt transportation and supply networks, close airports, and potentially
be a health hazard,” Smith added.
Local governments must develop plans to deal with this type of occurrence, just as they
do for earthquakes and flooding.
“Although the Las Vegas Valley is currently very far away from any active volcanoes, we
can and will have ash from these volcanoes fall over Southern Nevada in the future,”
Smith said.
According to the UNLV team, researching the ash layers helps calculate how frequently
the Las Vegas area was bombarded with ash over time and may help prepare for future
catastrophes from distant active volcanoes.
However, the mysteries beneath the lake do not stop there.
Last month, a set of human remains were recovered from the shallows of Lake Mead, marking the
sixth time this year that declining water levels uncovered bodies from the past.
The National Park Service confirmed that a diver spotted a human bone, which led a park
diving team to the location of the skeletal remains.
It's unknown whether the bone and the remains belong to the same person, and the Clark County
coroner's office is currently looking into previously discovered partial sets of remains
to figure out how many people have been recovered from the depths this year.
Unlike prior finds, such as the first body discovered in a barrel in May and considered
to be tied to a mob murder in the 1970s.
Medical examiners recognized one set of remains uncovered in the Callville Bay region as those
of Thomas Erndt, a 42-year-old father who drowned in 2002.
This year has also seen the discovery of a number of interesting relics from the distant
past, one of which is a sunken ship from the second world war that was built to transport
troops into beachfront battles during deployment at Normandy.
A B-29 plane, still shadowed by the depths, is also becoming visible for the first time
in decades.
As water levels continue to fall, more artefacts and bones are expected to appear.
“You will find things in the lake.
It’s inevitable,” Michael Green, an associate professor of history at the University of
Nevada, told reporters, pointing out that the area flooded by the man-made lake was
rich in archaeological ruins.
However, despite these discoveries, the drought has wrought more destruction than opportunity
for discovery.
The findings are indicators of terrible drought conditions that have been afflicting the western
region of the United States and which are only projected to worsen in the years to come.
What do you think of these finds made in the wake of Lake Mead decline?
Share your thoughts in the comments section below.