The Bureau of Reclamation says water levels at Lake Powell could drop too low to generate hydropower as soon as next year.
The dire projection is familiar territory in the midst of a two-decade megadrought.
The nation’s second largest reservoir is only about 30% full. If it drops much more, it could go below the hydropower turbines inside Glen Canyon Dam. They generate electricity for about 5 million people across seven Western states.
The reservoir faced the same problem a few years ago. Water managers made emergency releases from other reservoirs to prop up Lake Powell until spring runoff came to the rescue.
Colorado River experts say that strategy won’t work in the long term.
Policymakers are under pressure to come up with a new system for sharing a river that’s shrinking because of climate change, and they need to do it before the current system expires in 2026.
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Mexico is hoping to make a deal with the United States after falling short of the amount it owes the United States in a five-year cycle that ended in October. -
Hundreds showed up for this year’s pilgrimage in late October, which began with a ceremony to honor those who died at the Japanese American internment camp known as the Colorado River Relocation Center — more commonly called Poston. -
New research shows that mountain regions around the world are warming faster than the lowlands below them. Scientists say that could have big consequences for the Mountain West, where communities rely on snow and ice for their water supply. -
Long before World War II, the U.S. Army rounded up Native Americans onto reservations — drawing in their new boundaries. And in Arizona, the federal government once again looked to those lands for another minority population — Japanese Americans — also forcibly rounded up by the military after the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941. -
The Arizona Board of Regents has approved a $3 million Regents’ Grant to strengthen Arizona’s agriculture industry and advance sustainable farming practices.
