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As wildfire crews battled the Dragon Bravo Fire on the Grand Canyon’s North Rim in July 2025, the air turned toxic.

A chlorine gas leak had erupted from the park’s water treatment facility as the building burned, forcing firefighters to pull back. The water treatment facility is part of a system that draws water from a fragile spring. It’s the only water source and system for the park facilities on both rims, including visitor lodging and park service housing.

The bottomless energy-sucking demands of AI data centers have sparked a hair-on-fire moment for the nation’s electricity grid, and that is not the only urgent grid-related issue in need of attention. Seawater desalination is another one of modern life’s great energy suckers, and the need is escalating alongside climate change and population growth among other factors. One solution has surfaced in the form of undersea desalination “pods” that can trim energy use by 40%, among other benefits, and the plan is poised for rapid scaleup.

After one of the Colorado River’s driest years in decades, Lake Mead and Lake Powell — the largest reservoirs in the country — could see alarming declines in the coming years, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced today.

Federal officials again called for Arizona and Nevada to cut back their supplies from the overtapped river — though California, with its senior claims to the river’s water, will be spared.

In North America we are looking into a future of uncertainty regarding long term safety of our water supply. A lot of factors contribute to this development, but one is more apparent now than ever.

Our water infrastructure — pipes beneath our feet, ageing treatment plants and critical flood protections — is easy to take for granted. But there is a problem brewing and it is not regarding the water infrastructure alone. The true crisis is emerging not in concrete and steel, but in the ranks of skilled engineers and technicians needed to build and keep these systems working. North America is entering a workforce crisis. Which begs the question – who will maintain our water infrastructure in 2035 and beyond?

Over the last century, Southern California has grown and thrived by accessing water from faraway sources including the Colorado River, the Eastern Sierra’s streams and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Massive aqueducts transport water through deserts, farmlands and mountains to sustain 19 million people across six counties.

But these traditional sources of water are projected to become less reliable as global warming shrinks the West’s mountain snowpack and unleashes more intense droughts.