in the Western United States鈥攖he worst seen in the region in about 1,250 years. The region’s dam system and the 30 million people dependent upon it are paying the price.
On the endangered Colorado River, a recent聽pulse flow linked the vanishing waterway to the Sea of Cortez, allowing a rare opportunity for adventurers to float its length. But the pulse was fleeting, and water supplies continue to be an escalating issue. Facing dire shortages, river authorities are, for the first time, considering .
Authorities , America鈥檚 largest reservoir, to protect the river and aged distribution policies for the first time this year. Recent show that Lake Mead, which is only 40 percent full, has been 聽and is set to fall to its lowest level ever next month.
“Here’s a reservoir that can hold two full years of the flow of the Colorado River, and it’s now down to less than one year’s worth of flow,” said John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which supplies water to Las Vegas, in an interview with the Desert Sun.
To pump water and generate electricity, Lake Mead can鈥檛 fall below 1,000 feet; it鈥檚 projected to reach that level by 2020. If lower basin states can鈥檛 ration water themselves by 2019, they won鈥檛 get any at all. Lower basin states need to reduce drawdowns to at least 800,000 acre-feet of the 10.2 million taken annually鈥.
Although global warming is playing a huge part in Western America鈥檚 water crisis, problems were enhanced for upper and lower basin states by faulty math in the early 20th century. , they referred to annually along the river. States have been drawing more water than the river can handle for almost a century.