The Colorado River’s Problems Are About to Get Deeper
Lake Powell is just 40 feet away from being unable to move the turbines on Glen Canyon Dam’s hydropower plant.
Photographer: Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
We live in an era of compounding climate disasters. Hurricanes lead to power failures that make heat waves more miserable. Heat waves harden the ground and make flooding worse. The Colorado River might be about to deliver the most complex multilevel train wreck of all.
The river, which serves 40 million people, has been losing water for decades as the planet has heated and those millions have used it too much. Then came this past winter, which was unusually warm in the mountains where the Colorado begins. That led to a perilous lack of snow in those mountains, meaning less water is available to melt into the river in spring and summer.