This Summer, America’s Water Crisis Will Be Real

The top two water problemshe just finished global warming and industrial overusethey are building in the US. From a Texas city facing a drought to years-long political problems coming to states that depend on the Colorado River, water issues in the West will begin this summer—and experts tell WIRED that some places should take notes and start planning for their future.

In February, after a winter of high temperatures, snow in various mountains across the American west they reached very low levels. March entered even hotbreaking records in districts across the country.

“What happened in March was unprecedented, and surprising, and disturbing, and from this country, frankly — we had unprecedented heat and we wouldn’t have had it without human-caused climate change,” said Brad Udall, senior water and climate researcher at Colorado State University’s Colorado Water Center. “We had snow that went from crummy to goddamn in three weeks.”

The snow problem is having a major impact on the Colorado River, the West’s most important water source, supplying water to 40 million people in seven states. The flow of the river in other parts of Colorado was slow to low last week, due to the first snow this year.

The Colorado River is not only important water: it also supplies power to more than 25 million people through the Lake Powell and Lake Mead dams, the nation’s two largest reservoirs. Depletion of water in these reservoirs poses a problem for power generation. By Tuesday morning, Lake Mead was after sitting at a height of 17 meters above its lowest profile, set in July 2022.

This dry season is also confronting a decades-old political crisis on the Colorado River. For years, countries that draw water from the river have struggled with how to allocate water from the river, as agricultural expansion and seasonal droughts have threatened long-term water supplies. Cattle feed beans are a heavy user of water from the Colorado, using more water than all the cities along the river combined. The world has lost important deadlinesincluding one in February, to renegotiate the Colorado River Compact of 1922, which governs how water is distributed in the region. Each country receives an annual share, and the amount of water must be divided equally between the upper basin and the lower basin.

Earlier this month, following the summer’s deadly protests, the US Department of the Interior stepped in, announcing the a to-do list its purpose is to conserve water power in Lake Powell. The government acknowledges that this could reduce the water capacity of Lake Mead and the availability of water in the areas downstream of the river.

With all this confusion, there is a chance, Udall says, that the lack of water this season could cause a historic event in the next few years: The countries along the river may not be able to provide enough water to the countries at the bottom of the basin, violating the 1922 agreement for the first time. This could lead to a potential conflict between countries.

“What’s frustrating for someone like me is just knowing,” Udall said. “Those of us who know better, including a lot of people in the Colorado River Basin, have seen this coming for a long time.”