dead pool Archives

Photos Shows Lake Mead’s Water Levels as Senator Issues Dire Warning

March 23, 2023/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Newsweekby Anna Skinner

Senator Mark Kelly recently shared two photos of Lake Mead, Arizona, and the stark contrast between the two fueled concerns about the reservoir’s ability to recover from severe drought.

Torrential rain on the West Coast has filled some California reservoirs to the point of overflow, and nearby states such as Utah also saw their reservoirs benefit from the excess rain. However, Lake Mead water levels remain relatively unchanged and still at nearly their lowest in the reservoir’s history.

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Has Rain Helped Lake Mead Water Levels?

March 9, 2023/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Newsweekby Robyn White

A particularly wet season has swept across the southwestern U.S., a region that has suffered under a severe megadrought for over two decades. But what has this meant for Colorado River reservoir Lake Mead?

Storms of rain and snow have hit California particularly badly in recent months, and have spread into neighboring states like Nevada. Reservoirs like Lake Mead rely on seasonal snowmelt and rainfall.

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Lake Powell Drops to a New Record Low as Feds Scramble to Prop It Up

February 16, 2023/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KUNCby Alex Hager

Water levels in Lake Powell dropped to a new record low on Tuesday. The nation’s second-largest reservoir is under pressure from climate change and steady demand, and is now the lowest it’s been since it was first filled in the 1960s.

Water levels fell to 3,522.16 feet above sea level, just below the previous record set in April 2022. The reservoir is currently about 22% full, and is expected to keep declining until around May, when mountain snowmelt will rush into the streams that flow downstream to Powell.

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Understanding California’s Relationship With the Colorado River

February 13, 2023/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /SFGATEby Amy Graff

It may feel like California is flush with water at the moment, after a winter of historic storms that replenished drought-starved lakes and left the Sierra Nevada snowpack at the deepest it’s been in 28 years. But follow the Colorado River, which supplies 15% of California’s water, back to bottomed-out reservoirs like Nevada’s Lake Mead, and it becomes clear the future of water in the Golden State is still very much in flux.

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Still No Agreement Between Western States, Including CA, on How to Reduce Colorado River Water Use

February 9, 2023/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /ABC 7 by Rob McMillan

With the Colorado River in crisis, there is still no agreement over which states and regions should have their water allocations cut back and how soon those cuts should go into effect.

Seven states in the western United States take water from the Colorado River, and although six of them have agreed on a framework, the lone holdout is the largest user of Colorado River water in the county: California.

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Lake Mead Water Levels: Could California Speed Up Recovery?

February 9, 2023/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Newsweekby Anna Skinner

As Lake Mead and Lake Powell levels inch closer to dead pool, states in the lower Colorado River basin are proposing more solutions that could lend to the reservoirs’ recoveries.

Required water cuts have already been implemented and increased in severity this year for Arizona and Nevada.

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Rain Helps Lake Mead Rise — 3 Inches

August 1, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Las Vegas Review-Journalby Marvin Clemons

With monsoon rains four out of the last five days in the Las Vegas area, there is at least one plus — Lake Mead has risen 3 inches.

At 7 p.m. Sunday the top of the lake was 1,040.99 feet above sea level at Hoover Dam. Five days ago, July 26, the lake measured at 1,040.75 feet.

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Western Drought Reaching Catastrophic Levels

July 26, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Ag Infoby Corryn La Rue

The western United States continues to suffer from a historic level of drought. California Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot spoke during the Western Food and Ag Issues Summit hosted by Agri-Pulse. He offers a key example of the drought’s severity.

“We are facing a worsening regional drought across most of the American West that’s unprecedented in nature. I spent the first half an hour of my day with the Western Growers talking about the Colorado River Basin.”

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Opinion: What Will Happen if Lake Mead Dries Up? Look to the Salton Sea

July 19, 2022/in Media Coverage, San Diego County /by Mike Lee /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Richard Thomas

Recently, historic record-low water volume in Lake Mead and Lake Powell has been headline news. While the trend of dropping water levels at two of the nation’s largest water reservoirs has been widely recognized for years (perhaps decades), a discussion about what it truly means for those who rely on its source for water and electricity downstream is rarely heard.

Lake Mead’s water level continues to fall to historic lows, bringing the reservoir less than 150 feet away from “dead pool” — so low that water cannot flow downstream from the dam.

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