What a drought has uncovered about Lake Powell 

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It’s not “crazy” how far the water has dropped-it was predicted. What’s crazy is how we’ve allowed it to happen.

"Water, water, water....There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount , a perfect ratio of water to rock, water to sand, insuring that wide free open, generous spacing among plants and animals, homes and towns and cities, which makes the arid West so different from any other part of the nation. There is no lack of water here, unless you try to establish a city where no city should be." -Edward Abbey

"We're going to have to start thinking about how we use water." - 2022 🤦 We were trying to raise this issue in 1982 when I was a grad student in Geography, and it wasn't new then. Most people won't listen to experts and prefer wishful thinking instead.

The two perspectives in this video describe my internal conflict over this change. I spent a great deal of my time growing up at lake powell with our family on the boat. It is my favorite place in the world and to think I may never be able to bring my own kids is heart breaking. On the other side, I share the same sentiments with the second interviewee. While my heart is filled with so much grief I cant help but to be in awe of the beauty of glen canyon being resurrected.

But the desert southwest still insists on having green lawns, huge palms that require a ton of water, the bottling plants, farms, and golf courses that also use water that should be used for consumption and power not for frivolous or downright stupid uses in a freaking desert.

Populations in southwest cities like Vegas & Phoenix have increased by 250-400% since 1990. The drought severity index in the southwest has hovered between +3 and -4 over the past 30 years. The last 3 years being the worst of this period, but the water in lake Powell has been steadily decreasing. This is the result of the Phoenix metro area having over 200 golf courses, and hundreds of people moving there every day. The drought isn't helping, but water usage is the real issue in the southwest.

I remember how disappointed and angry my parents were back in the 60s as Lake Powell was filling up. They made sure and took me to as many scenic spots as they could before the lake covered them all up. Two things I remember: One was a ferry crossing for cars across what was then just the Colorado River. It was one of those old wooden platforms that was pulled across the river by cables and pulleys. They specifically took that route so I could experience that crossing before the whole area was flooded by the rising lake. The other memory I have is that we took a guide boat out to Rainbow Bridge. Back then the boat had to dock quit a distance away from the bridge and we had to walk quit a distance to get there. Everyone was so worried that as the lake rose eventually it would fill up the stream under the bridge and perhaps make the ground unstable so that the bridge might actually collapse and be ruined. Obviously it hasn't and I'm so glad it's a beautiful place to visit. Personally, I'm glad the lake is shrinking, what was there before was and will be so much more beautiful and quiet than the lake with all the speedboats, waterskiers, and jetskis. I'm so thankful to my parents for taking the time and making the effort to take me to so many places and give me such amazing experiences and memories of the wonderful, beautiful western US. Thanks Mom & Dad, I love you so much! RiP

You water 'experts' are forgetting one very important thing. The Colorado River has never depended on rainfall in the Southwest. It needs snowmelt from the Wyoming and Colorado snowpacks for its volume. It draws water from about a dozen subsidiary rivers in 7 states. Lack of rainfall doesn't affect it as much as lack of snowpack in the Colorado mountains.

I like how they try to blame "drought" and "climate change" not "People" or the fact they are in a DESERT.

Edward Abbey was 60 years ahead of his time. He fought tooth and nail against the building of the dam, predicting that it would be only a quarter full by now. I’d say he was just about spot on.

Sad😢 I have such special memories of Powell. I knew a lady who hiked those canyon's in the 50's. She was a photographer and poet and had some beautiful framed pictures. I remember asking her about them and when she told me it was Cathedral Canyon under Lake Powell I was amazed.

Let’s not forget that around 750-1,000 years ago (if memory serves me) the native American cliff dwellers (Mesa Verde? Bandalier?) departed after 25-30 years of drought.

it's not just climate change, it's also the growing population along with the endless amount of housing and all the new communities that go with it. Arizona had a population of 1.3 million in 1960, now it's at 7.4 million. Everybody needs water and everybody needs electricity, and no doubt something bad is going to come out of all of this.

My cousin's wife died by drowning during a flash flood while hiking Labyrinth Canyon just this past July. They tied up their pontoon, just like this reporter and guide. They hiked through that same passage. They weren't aware of the heavy rain that had just fallen 'upstream'. The resulting flash flood swept up the family of 5. Her 3 sons (triplets) and husband survived. When the reporter and guide were on foot looking up the canyon walls in that same passage, I couldn't help but think of what they must have experienced to be overwhelmed with water, no where to go, and the panic of knowing your whole family, your children are instantaneously in harm's way... 💔

I had a seizure in Lake Powell at 10 yrs old, in 1992... would have died had my cousin not dove down and pulled me up. Earlier in that same trip I remember taking a small boat off the house boat to adventure around. We found this little cove area, and went in on foot... tons of tiny colorful frogs jumping around... it was truly magical. Even tho I almost died here, I hold it so dear and close to my heart. 💙💚💜

It's difficult to watch the view of the area of Lone Rock completely dry around it. I spent so many summers at Lone Rock Beach, never imagining that it would one day be so dry that I could walk up to it instead of boating up to it. People should've started conserving water a couple decades ago when the level began dropping. I understand the push to drain the lake, and I've seen just a few of the thousands of artifacts the University of Utah was able to rescue as the lake began to fill in the 60's, but it hurts to see it that low. This was always mine and my dad's special vacation spot. I'm kinda glad he didn't live long enough to see it like this. I think he'd be just as heartbroken as I am to watch it disappearing so fast. That being said, I do think it's a wonderful thing that so many native and also unique geological formations are now being seen after being underwater for many decades.

The southwest is one of the sunniest places on earth. The fact that single family homes aren't required to produce a percentage of their own electricity through solar is squandering of a natural resource. If every home produced 20% of it's own power needs the power worries would be nearly eliminated if not fully.

How about the fact that multimillion dollar homes in Vegas using millions of gallons of water each year keeping up the landscaping didn't help either, but the media won't cover this.....

Went there 4 years ago and it was a lot lower than I expected compared to when I went there 25 years ago but the biggest disappointment was the upstream canyons were full of pollution. Some of the hideaway canyons actually stunk bad and there was lots of trash everywhere....sad.

I’m one of the pilots that flies tourist over Lake Powell daily. It’s still beautiful and the rocks/formations are amazing.

There is one big issue FINALLY comming to light.... Las Vegas shoukd never have been ALLOWED to grow as big as it did.... That was a huge mistake!!

Millions of people living in a desert was never a good idea. Las Vegas ! How does Las Vegas make sense in a desert ?

When I was a T.A. For freshman Geography in the 1980s, I would show my students a film about the Colorado River, which even then did not reach the sea. The main points I remember about the Glen Canyon Dan concerned the flooding of the natural beauties of the canyon, and the dam’s ineffectiveness at fulfilling the purpose for which it was built. The Glen Canyon Dam was a mistake in the first place.

Dude it's never been normal to fish on a lake in a boat in the desert!!!! What did people think would happen?

I think there are two important things to understand. One is that this isn’t about water supply, in the sense that this is not about having drinking water for people or irrigation for crops. It’s about having enough water in the lake to be profitably producing power so that the company that owns the dam is making money. The second thing is that Lake Powell is terrible as a reservoir and it always has been. The canyon that the Reservoir has filled is a very porous sandstone, in addition to that lake Powell is a very long lake with a lot of surface area which leaves it’s water baking in the desert sun and being lost to evaporation. The combination of these two things means that lake Powell loses as much water to evaporation and to water seeping into the canyon walls as it actually sends down stream. You read that right half of the water that flows into lake Powell is lost and never makes it downstream. Lake Meade on the other hand is a deep reservoir that has comparatively little surface area which means that it loses far less water than Powell. The Black Canyon that became the Lake Mead reservoir is also made out of a basalt rock that is almost impervious to water. Holding water back from Lake Mead to store in Powell is absolutely Idiotic if the goal is to actually save water. It’s like taking all of your money from a secure bank account and transferring it to one that looses 50% of your money every year. Glen Canyon was the last reservoir in the Colorado river project for a reason, that reason is that it’s not a very safe damn site and it’s not a very good place for a reservoir. Drain Powell and use Mead for Water storage, flood control and power production. That’s how the system worked for decades and it was far better than what we have today. The only reason we’re keeping Lake Powell is politics and the power company not wanting to lose their free money.

Lake Powell only exists to distribute water for the Colorado River Compact, which vastly over allocated the river water at the time in the 1960s. Now there’s about half as much coming down the Colorado. It seems almost impossible that Lake Mead could ever fill up again, even if Powell were drained. The Compact needs to be re-written to acknowledge our new reality.

I just worked here last summer! This is insane how quickly it all changed.

I moved to the 4-Corners area in 1999. People were already talking about the 10+ years drought. Pine trees were stressed by drought and the Pine Beetles were killing all of the forested areas. Forest fires were frequent. To say that the drought has been going on for 20 years is not true. More like 40 years. This is the worst drought in 1200 years. That is when the Anasazi left Mesa Verde.

And Las Vegas hoses down the streets every night, fountains flow, golf courses flourish in the middle of the freaking desert.

This desert southwest was never capable or mean to hold millions of people with manicured lawns and swimming pools. Mother Nature is telling us loud and clear that it is past time to get our environmental house in order. Cities like Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas and Los Angeles are rapidly approaching a day of reckoning, they could be huge ghost towns in 20-30 years, maybe less. Of course this is an issue for the entire world, not just the American Southwest. For those of us who’ve been sounding this alarm for over 40 years, we take no pleasure in screaming “I told you so”!!!

So sad to see this happening throughout the great Southwest. Water levels dropping too much too fast. GOD help us!

Love that lawn and pool brother Young. Edit: "brother"

Three years ago I did a two week boat camping trip on Lake Powell in a 13 foot rowing/sailing dingy. As I slowly made my way up the lake, I had a great time primitive camping and day hiking along the banks. I also met a guy in a big inflatable kayak with his mountain bike strapped on the deck who was doing a bike/paddle down part of the Colorado river. The slick rock country is one of our national treasures.

I boated on the waters of Lake Powell since 1982. Circumnavigating it first in a Coleman Scanoe with 5 hp outboard. Then in rented houseboats. Finally moving my boat to Big Water UT in the early 90s and camped all over the lake till 2002 when I repatriated my boat back to NJ as the lake began to really start to shrink. During that time I started reading about Glenn Canyon before the damn and realized that while I enjoyed the beautiful lake as I had found it, just how much natural beauty was sacrificed to creat it and started to wish I had known it before the dam. Well the next few years I may get closer to realizing my dream than I ever thought possible and intend to explore this wild area hopefully with the solitude that existed back before the dam existed.

Why is the draught only affecting 2 lakes Powell and Mead?

I just moved to Arizona. My neighbor has some sort of water leak. It is flooding both our yards and the rest of the neighborhood. Basically wasting 1000s of gallons of water a day.

Having lived with the Hopi I have spent some time on the lake but always wanted to see the canyon as it was. I was adopted by the water clan of the Hopi and was taught how water is so sacred and we abuse it to access. Is your lawn worth it?

The dwindling lake is once again, revealing the hallowed and protective canyons where my paternal ancestors hid from the U.S. Army during the mid 1860s. This particular genocidal campaign called for the Dine, the Navajo to be rounded up and forcibly removed from their ancestral homeland to be relocated to an abysmal concentration camp along the NM/Texas border. Many perished during the "Long Walk," and the four years of confinement at Fort Sumner ("Hweeldi," The place of suffering and fear) before they were allowed to return to a newly established reservation. Never heard of this atrocity? The US was focused on the Civil War so few were aware of it.

So if the electricity production will be a problem, will this not be a problem also for mass electric vehicles? John Kerry just said we need to increase EVs multifold.

So the Ice caps are melting and a Lake is loosing water?

This has more to do with populations of people moving out into desert areas by the millions and calling it a drought. Sure there may be less water due to a somewhat dry spell but you grow subdivisions with water like a crop.

So sad what humanity has done to the world

If only there were people 10-15 years ago telling us about this climate change….

well done i lived in the area for 10 years, and wondered how long st george, and vegas could sell domestic water taps.

I feel bad for the people who live in areas who need the water and electricity but the exposed caves and rocks makes me want to visit.

I live out here by Lake Powell, Its incredible how fast the level went down. I live about 20 minutes north but am not affected because our small town uses well water. Its an almost daily conversation in town tho. Feels like only recently with Sen Kelly are things like solar power being discussed

I visited lake Powell As a child Nearly 35 years ago now And it was full to the brim.

This isn't due to drought, this is overuse of a limited resource.

I think we should also frame this in the context of what this drought means for the US and world in terms of drought and famine.

The Hidden Canyon. A River Journey. By Edward Abbey. Read it and weep. Makes you understand why that young man in the video is happy about the return of the canyons. Don’t know if Hayduke lives, but Mother Nature does. Hope I live to walk in that canyon.

Soooo...they are upset that it is going back to what it was in recent times and acting as if it is some kind of calamity??? The desert is going back to desert? What am I missing???

A single gondola railroad car holds approximately 380000 gallons o water times that by 100 cars shipped from flooded areas in the east. People just ignored this.

Lake Mead is 2.5 feet from losing 12 of 17 turbines and dropping several inches per DAY. About 2 weeks maybe less with this week ends heat.

What's all this about droughts in Desserts? Do desserts even have droughts? WTF! 🤔

So sad I remember the way it was in the 90's and my father remembers how it was in the 60's and 70's.... Too sad

Glen canyon is great and all but lake Powell is one of my favorite parts of the US. The red messas combined with the water is just stunning.

I remember the National Geographic magazine feature in the 60's when I was just a boy about that horrible dam project and the opposition to it. I'm so happy there's a chance that I might be able hike there in the not too distant future. Should have never been built.

Well I mean we had plenty of chances to stop this from happening, but you know people don't learn until it's either to late or affects them personally.

I live in vegas and lake mead has been going lower and lower each year. It’s scary and sad to see.

Gorge bottoms are narrow. It’s going to get worse. Might want to rethink the Lake Powell pipeline feeding lawns and golf courses and alfalfa grams in the middle of an arid region.

Natural climate change that should have been accounted for before adding millions of new water users to a finite supply of water. The last century was a rare wetter period for the area, decades and even century long droughts are the norm out there.

"It's like a dead forest coming out of the water..." Investigative journalism at its best!

So... how about banning open pools first and rationing water in general? Better than running out of water, isn't it?

Water. The gift of life!!!

Dam should have never been built. Destroyed incredible landscape. Green grass and golf courses are not worth the water rising again.

The land can only support so many people.

Remember that your in a Desert area , it rains sometimes and it doesn't rain sometimes stops for years at times

The same thing is happening at Lake Mead. I don't think it's so much running out of water, but too much demand on what is there. Two hundred years ago, this 'drought' would hardly be considered serious because of the low demand on water in the area but now with millions demanding water..yup..the drought is serious.

Phoenix issued 60,000+ building permits in 2021. Draw your own conclusions.

it's sad to see that. I remember visiting Lake Mead, Lake Powell in the early 80's and 90's. I was really amazed at the impressions. These are saved thank goodness. If you see that today, it's terrible how the environment has changed due to humans.

Wow 😮

Nature is reclaiming it's land.

Take lots and lots and lots of pictures. Last year we had lots/tons of water on east of the Rockies in Colorado. Now this year even the eastern side is experiencing drought. At least the snowfall this winter was almost normal.

How much water has disappeared because of drought conditions, and how much because it's used for irrigation?

It’s NOT CLIMATE CHANGE ! It Is To Many People Building And Living In The Desert Environments , And The Water Usage For Lawns , And Golf Courses , And The Heat From New Highways , Roads , Buildings And Houses !

This is what happens when the US Gov't kicked the can down the road since the 1950's. The've know this was going to happen for DECADES!!!!!!

More houses! More apartments! More casinos!

why do they always leave out the fact that there are five times the amount of people depending and consuming these reservoirs than the was 40-50 years ago? seems disingenuous

Its not about climate change , its about all the houses been built in nevada ,arizona, California

The problem with the water level in Lake Mead is twofold one is Hoover dam it uses 9,200,000,000,000 gallons of water in two years Number two is historic drought it has not rained there in a long time! You can save what you have by shutting down Hoover Dam. For at least two years that we will save 9,200,000,000,000 gallons of water 💦 otherwise within four years Lake Meade will be called Meade Canyon!

Nature's slow and patient reclamation in already in progress.

Thank you for this video.

Look at Lake Meade also, I do believe from not diverting water properly. Would not relocate some birds.

Absolutely mind blowing that nothing is said about the enormous development in the desert. There should not be homes in the desert if there is no reliable water supply. It’s simple math here. They are using more than us being replenished

I went to Lake Powell around 2006, to this day I still say it is one of my favorite places ever, this initially made me sad past few yrs hearing of the trouble it’s in but now watching this shows a different perspective I had never thot about. Thx

This lack of water has been worse 7 to 9 times since 1900

@1:03 - This very exchange is why I ditched our TV's in 2011. The fisherman very accurately describes the situation in perfectly understandable English and the trained seal "reporter" repeats the cromulent statement as a question to seem smart and engaging. Neither of those two things are true.

Should have left the desert to be what it was and not make green oases now there might not be any coming back from that

Building populations up to match the good times is just the ancient well established way for a people to come and then inevitably to go. Nothing really changes and technology is still helpless against the forces of nature on any large scale and tends to destruction rather than creation on any long term view.

There is no such thing as a water shortage. There IS such a thing as a water allocation problem.

Please be honest, the white bathtub ring as you called it represents full pool, it hasn't dropped from the highest level of the ring in a year, that has happened over many years. Lets all recognize that it is in the middle of the largest desert in north America, how surprised should we be that the desert is dry? that the desert has droughts? Was the drop caused by climate change or by the totally expected and cyclical drought patterns of a desert?

Once again, no one mentions the real problem: too damn many people.

Gréât read on this subject - A Great Aridness, by William DeBuys. Looking at some of the comments… depressing, leaves little to hope for humanity. The ignorance and trolling is stunning.

Climate change? How about people watering lawns in the southwest - in areas that are not meant to support lush green lawns and landscape

Who all uses water out of these lakes?

It's shocking that with all the sunlight that these regions have, they haven't capitalized on natural resources. These canyons look stunning and are taking back their natural state. Something good is coming out of nature forcing the change.

It should be top priority to build reverse osmosis plants and pipelines to start pumping water back into the Lakes before you run out of water and have nothing, but I know what will happen , everybody will talk about it and do nothing

0:55 Perfect Huell Howser imitation.

Good report. Solid work. Thank you.