The United States' largest reservoir is draining rapidly. Plagued by extreme, climate change-fueled drought and increasing demand for water, Lake Mead on Wednesday registered its lowest level on record since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s.
Lake Mead, a Colorado River reservoir just east of Las Vegas on the Nevada-Arizona border, is poised to become the focal point of one of the country's most significant climate crises: water shortages in the West. Millions of people will be affected in the coming years and decades by the Colorado River shortage alone, researchers say, with some being forced to make painful water cuts.
It's not a threat on the horizon; new projections show the first-ever water shortage along the Colorado River is all but certain to be declared later this year.
"Even without climate change, we would have a problem because we're taking more water out than the river could provide," John Fleck, director of the Water Resources Program at the University of New Mexico, told CNN. "But climate change has made the problem much worse by substantially reducing the flow in the river."
The water in Lake Mead on Wednesday reached a new low — 1070.6 feet above sea level — since it was filled in the 1930's, according to data provided by the US Bureau of Reclamation. More precisely, every day for the past eight days has been a record as rapid evaporation and human use siphon water from the reservoir.
About a century ago, representatives from seven U.S. states — Nevada, California, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico — struck a deal to divvy up the Colorado River. Hydrologists warned that officials were promising more water than the river could give, according to Fleck. But in an era driven by power and politics, their warnings were largely ignored and plans moved forward.
25,000,000 people rely on Lake Mead water
That's more than the population of Florida.
Snaking its way through the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California, the flows of the Colorado River are dwindling due to climate change-driven heat and drought.
Among the hardest hit in the first round of water cuts will be agricultural communities, particularly those in central Arizona. With less water, farmers say they will be forced to fallow land.
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