Photo: Glen Canyon Dam Water levels on Lake Powell, the second largest reservoir in the U.S., have dropped below 3,525 feet – a critical level that threatens water supplies and hydroelectricity for millions of people. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had predicted the threshold wouldn’t be reached until August. The reservoir’s storage capacity of 26.2
The American West’s megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest in at least 1,200 years and is a worst-case climate change scenario playing out live, a new study finds. A dramatic drying in 2021 — about as dry as 2002 and one of the driest years ever recorded for the
The largest natural lake west of the Mississippi is shrinking past its lowest levels in recorded history, raising fears about toxic dust, ecological collapse and economic consequences. But the Great Salt Lake may have some new allies: conservative Republican lawmakers. The new burst of energy from the GOP-dominated state government comes after lake levels recently
The Central Arizona Project, which delivers Colorado River water to more than 80% of Arizona’s growing population, is taking a three-pronged approach to the megadrought that has resulted in the first water cutbacks to Arizona farmers. One of those approaches is N-Drip, which converts flood-irrigated fields into a drip system that uses gravity, with no external
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s announcement this week that he would work with the Legislature to provide $1 billion to “secure Arizona’s water future for the next 100 years” focused entirely on a new desalination plant in Mexico. But a funding plan for the plant that was a key part of Ducey’s final state of the
Photo by Emma VandenEinde/Cronkite News
Get all the latest news for the quad city area – Email Newsletters you can trust.