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April 18th, 2025
Via AS.com, an article on the concerns that reservoirs could reach deadpool levels in the next few years are very real, with water levels down 20 percent over the past century:
The Colorado River is one of the few perennial water supplies for some of the hottest and driest zones of the United States. It provides water for over 40 million people in its catchment area and five million acres of farmland in Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming. Some areas, such Las Vegas, are almost entirely dependent on the river.
However, there is concern that the river is drying up. Water levels have been steadily declining and are currently 20 percent lower than they were 100 years ago.
Why is the Colorado River drying up?
The Colorado River Basin has been in an extended drought for the past two decades – a situation that has impacted vegetation, increased wildfire activity and caused water levels in major reservoirs such as Lake Powell and Lake Mead to drop down to levels never seen before, and the The long-term outlook isn’t looking good.
The rivers feeding Lake Powell are running at under 50 percent of the April average, according to the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center. Projections for Lake Mead are even more alarming – it could reach its lowest point ever later this year.
So what has caused this? Temperatures in both the upper and lower basins of the river have climbed over the past quarter of a century. The last 25 years have been about 2°F warmer than the average for the 100 years and probably warmer than at any time in the past 2,000 years.
Federal funding to support water conservation
It’s not all doom and gloom. Water levels are down, but only in comparison to when data started to be compiled at the start of the 20th century, considered to be the high-flow years (1905–1930) and most likely the wettest period over the previous 500–1000 years.
There is also Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act which will invest $728 million to provide clean, reliable drinking water to communities and support water conservation in the Upper Colorado River Basin.
The Upper Basin System Conservation Program will receive $125 million in funding to help efforts to increase water conservation, improve water efficiency, and prevent the System’s reservoirs from falling to critically low elevations.