Two of the largest man-made reservoirs in the U.S. could reach critically low storage levels by 2025, according to projections from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the reservoirs that store the Colorado River water, were reduced dramatically by a severe drought in 2000, and they haven't recovered significantly since."That drought cut it to 50% capacity by 2005," said Carly Jerla, Operations Research Analyst at the bureau. "Since that time, there's only been three years of above average inflow. The projections we just released reported a bump up in risk based on this year's hydrology, which has dropped reservoir levels to lower than what we thought they would be in April."To cope with the low water levels, the seven states in the Colorado River basin and regions of Mexico have adopted Drought Contingency Plans. Those plans began in 2019 with the goal of reducing water use in the region to help restore the reservoirs."Those plans were a product of monitoring that risk and seeing that it was getting to an unacceptable level," said Jerla. "They have the result of drawing the risk back down, but the dry conditions this year have bumped it up."
展开▼
