Lake Powell, the second-largest reservoir in the United States, faces a severe risk of plunging to unprecedentedly low levels this year after a historically bleak winter snowpack failed to replenish its water supply.
The 185-mile Colorado River reservoir currently stands at approximately 23% of its total capacity, which translates to roughly 5.6 million acre-feet.
While Lake Powell dropped below this mark for a brief period three years ago, those 2023 levels occurred during the winter season when the reservoir typically hits its lowest point.
Data from the US Bureau of Reclamation shows that spring runoff previously managed to elevate the water levels back to 9.6 million acre-feet by June of that year.
Conditions differ drastically this season following a winter of historically low mountain snowpack combined with a record-breaking heatwave that swept across the southwest in March.
Water levels at the reservoir barely experienced any rise this spring, and it ended June below the annual low recorded the previous month despite supplemental water releases from the upstream Flaming Gorge Reservoir.
Aside from the short period observed in 2023, the water level at the reservoir has not dropped this low since June of 1965, which was just two years after authorities began filling it.
Experts Warn of Unprecedented Low Conditions
"What's unique this year is that there was no recovery at all," said Jack Schmidt, the director of Utah State University's Center for Colorado River Studies.
"What we expect to happen is that Lake Powell will go to unprecedented low conditions some time this fall," Schmidt added.
"Water management in the Colorado River system is starting to get terribly complicated," he added.
Projections indicate the water level will continue declining for the next eight months, which threatens hydroelectric operations and complicates negotiations over an unreliable water supply used by 40 million people across seven states, tribal nations, and two countries.
The reservoir stands just 37 feet above the critical threshold where electricity-generating turbines begin to fail, impacting nearly 6 million households and businesses that depend on the Glen Canyon power plant.
Negotiators from California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming have yet to finalize a conservation agreement, leaving the US Bureau of Reclamation poised to impose forced cuts as early as next month.
"In the 21st century, the ultimate cause of the problem is declining runoff," said Schmidt. "There's less water in the system.
It's caused by a warming climate, period."
Sarah Porter, the director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, noted that southwestern cities are deploying alternate tools and voluntary frameworks to manage the shortage.
Phoenix is currently investing in recycling effluent from sewage into drinking water, while San Diego announced a plan to trade surplus water from its desalination plant to allow Arizona and Nevada to buy its unused Colorado River rights.
Brad Udall, a water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University, suggested that paying users to exit the system remains a necessary strategy to recharge the depleted reservoirs.
"There are too many straws in the glass," Udall said.
"Rather than having an annual fight over who gets what, let's remove some straws … One way to do that is the American way – let's buy 'em out."
"You see climate change impacts across the globe, like big floods, hurricanes – but people pick up the pieces and kind of go back to the way they were living before," Udall said.
"But here, because the flows are so low, we're going to have to start buying out or cutting off water users, and the rules we have are completely inadequate to the task."
While extreme predictions raise concerns that the reservoir could hit a "deadpool" status where gravity can no longer carry water downstream, Schmidt stated such a catastrophe is unlikely due to potential intervention from authorities.
