The water levels of Lakes Powell and Mead are at record lows. What does that mean for the millions of people who rely on the country's two biggest reservoirs and the Colorado River that feeds them?
The country's two largest reservoirs have hit dangerously low water levels. Lake Powell and Lake Mead, both on the Colorado River, provide water and hydropower for millions of Americans. NPR's Ava Berger has more.
AVA BERGER, BYLINE: It's not an easy time to be a farmer in Arizona. Nancy Caywood would know. Caywood Farms has been in her family for generations.
NANCY CAYWOOD: We just haven't had the water to irrigate, so with not having that water, we could not plant cotton.
BERGER: Water, brought in from the Colorado River hundreds of miles away, has allowed desert states like Arizona and California to thrive. That's increasingly under threat. Caywood's farm stopped getting water from the Colorado River years ago. Another farm that she leases had its river water cut by 86%. The Colorado River, which feeds Lake Powell and Mead, provides water for more than 40 million people in seven states and dozens of tribal communities. But for decades now, the two reservoirs have been shrinking. Lake Mead sank to its lowest ever water level in early August, and Lake Powell is on its way to hitting a record low. Jack Schmidt is a senior research scientist at the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University.
JACK SCHMIDT: We now are in the unfortunate situation of breaking records.
BERGER: Climate change has caused hotter temperatures and severe droughts contributing to the low water level. This winter was one of the driest in recorded history. The reservoirs rely on snow melt that runs into the Colorado River, so little snow means little water. Schmidt thinks of it like a bank account. The reservoirs were full in the fall of 1999.
BERGER: Since then, the water levels only dropped lower and lower.
SCHMIDT: Our income precipitously dropped, and we didn't decrease our spending.
BERGER: But it's not that millions of people will just go without water one day. That's according to Sarah Porter. She's the director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.
SARAH PORTER: Cities have saved up groundwater supplies and are more or less prepared to deliver alternative supplies. And they're ramping up, over the long term, other sustainable supplies.
BERGER: As for the federal government's solution, they released a proposal in July calling for potentially huge cuts in water use in coming years for California, Arizona and Nevada. Despite the likelihood of more water shortages, Nancy Caywood, the farm owner in Arizona, isn't ready to give up.
CAYWOOD: People say, when are you going to throw in the towel?
BERGER: She says she'll keep planting cotton, alfalfa, wheat and barley for as long as possible. Ava Berger, NPR News.
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