Negotiations Moving Forward On Plan To Avert Colorado River ‘Crash’

The largest reservoir in the country now stands at just 37 percent full. Lake Mead reached its lowest point on record this year, and federal water officials estimate the odds of the reservoir slipping into shortage conditions in 2018 at nearly 50-50. The reservoir’s decline reflects a fundamental deficit in how the Colorado River has been divided up for decades. The old system of allotments that sustains farms and cities is doling out much more water than the river can provide, and the strains on the river are being compounded by 16 years of drought and rising temperatures.