SETH W. JAMES

The Worsening Water Crisis

January 6, 2023

By Seth W. James

The Colorado River Water Users Association Conference, the largest annual meeting of its kind in the United States, took place late last year in Las Vegas, Nevada, where water managers placed a bet that every human in the country may have to cover by as early as this summer.  Climate change has significantly reduced rainfall in areas that feed major rivers, while desiccated land between mountains and rivers now absorbs snow-melt runoff before it can reach lower elevations.  The impact on the Colorado River has proven significant, if not isolated, with The Washington Post reporting that, “In 1999, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the two largest reservoirs in the country, held 47.6 million acre-feet of water. That has fallen to about 13.1 million acre-feet, or 26 percent of their capacity. An acre-foot equals 326,000 gallons, or enough to cover an acre of land in a foot of water.”  Both Lake Mead and Lake Powell were created by damns that control water delivery to downstream states, as well as producing electricity from their hydroelectric plants.  “The average annual flow of the river during that period has been 13.4 million acre-feet — while users are pulling out an average of 15 million acre-feet per year,” said James Prairie, Research and Modeling Group Chief at the Bureau of Reclamation.  With water levels now at historic lows, coupled with ever-increasing demand, both damns could stop functioning, losing the ability to deliver water or power, by as early as this July for Lake Powell and following within two years for Lake Mead.  The Biden Administration had set an August 2022 deadline for voluntary water-usage cuts, a deadline that had expired without action.  A crisis is coming that will see water delivery stop for states in the southwest, impacting drinking water for residents and irrigation for farms that provide a significant portion of the country’s winter produce.

The Colorado River crisis, sadly, is not isolated.  The Mississippi River had also seen historic lows last year, with water levels falling so significantly near in Memphis, Tennessee, that in mid-October barges were unable to navigate the river.  Special dredging and water release measures were needed to restart the trans-river shipping.  While this has happened before, it is now happening more often and the effects of the transportation interruption can be seen on nearly anyone’s store shelves, as the cessation of barge traffic on The Mississippi River leads inevitably to food and product shortages.  Worse is to come, unfortunately, as climate change advances and the water level in rivers across the continent continue to fall, barge traffic as we know it may come to a permanent halt, resulting in a shift to using more trucks and trains, further straining the few, dilapidated bridges that cross major rivers, which in turn will produce more shortages along with increased emissions of climate-changing exhaust.

As chilling as the cold facts of the worsening water crisis may be, falling water levels in rivers and lakes have revealed just how historic our current situation is, in often grizzly fashion.  Back in May of 2022, human remains were discovered in a metal drum on the (newly receded) shoreline of Lake Mead, remains that bore a gunshot wound to the head.  The body was followed by five more, as the falling water level revealed tragedy after tragedy, foreshadowing the loss of life that is to come, as water scarcity and food shortages loom.  Old shipwrecks, too, have resurfaced as waterlines have fallen: on The Mississippi, near Baton Rouge, a ferry believed to have sunk in the late 1800s to early 1900s was exhumed from its watery grave as the river withdrew; near The Great Salt Lake, the “W.E. Marsh No. 4,” a boat used by the Southern Pacific Railroad, emerged as the lake’s water level dropped.  As our rivers and lakes become graveyards, how many more signs will be needed before humanity demands action of itself?