As Bureaucrats Squabble, The Colorado River Dies In The Desert

 

As Bureaucrats Squabble - The Colorado River Dies In The Desert

 

In the past nineteen years, I have written about Lake Powell and the Colorado River twenty-five times. With some overlap, I have written about Glen Canyon Dam fifteen times, Lake Mead eight times, and Hoover Dam six times.

By 2013, I was openly questioning the originally stated need for Lake Powell. Back in the 1950s, officials and boosters touted Glen Canyon Dam as a flood control dam that also happened to produce electrical power. The unspoken reason for its construction was to decrease siltation downstream at Lake Mead. There, unchecked sedimentary flow was already becoming an operational issue. In 2015, I publicly called for the decommissioning of Glen Canyon Dam and the draining of Lake Powell.

Now, in late summer 2026, both nature and water politics have doomed Lake Powell and possibly Lake Mead. Had federal water managers at the Bureau of Reclamation, Department of the Interior taken bold action in 2015, the infrastructure to alleviate a potential “dead pool” at Lake Powell could be in place and ready for action.

As it is, those same water managers and their political overlords kicked the can down the road. They took no action to drill new bypass tunnels around Glen Canyon Dam. Belatedly, they released water from several upstream reservoirs and into Lake Powell. This action, over the past few years, delayed the day of reckoning and subsequent demise of the Colorado River, as we know it.

In 2026, the Lower Colorado River Basin States of Arizona, California and Nevada reached a truce and agreement regarding water usage over the next few years. The Upper Basin States of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming refused to participate. Instead, they held firm to their “water rights,” as defined in the 1922 “Law of the River.” Their refusal to engage in negotiations tossed the decision-making process back to the federal water managers. Now, the issue is in the hands of the same bureaucrats who previously ignored the facts on the ground, and in the water.

The Colorado River Compact of 1922, as is officially known, wildly overestimated the sustainable flow of the Colorado River. Currently, after two decades of drought, the concept of the old agreement both literally and physically does not hold water. Now, there is not enough water in the Colorado River to go around and there will never be.

Lake Powell –

What remains at Lake Powell is a declining reservoir, losing vast amounts of water to dwindling inflow, banking, evaporation, and upstream development. The system must also absorb a “heat island” effect, which redirects storms away from the Colorado Plateau. To save power production at Glen Canyon Dam, water managers have tapped upstream reservoirs while simultaneously constricting outflow to Lake Mead.

On August 4, 2026, when I began writing this post, the surface of Lake Powell was at 3,522 feet elevation. Now, on September 14, 2026, the lake level is at 3,517 feet elevation, which is an all-time low for the reservoir.

With upstream reservoirs mostly drained and a diminishing snowpack in the Rocky Mountains, minimum power pool, at 3,490 feet elevation may occur by January 1, 2027. As minimum power pool approaches, the turbines at Glen Canyon Dam will spin down and produce less power each day. By the time we celebrate New Year’s 2027, the last turbine might stop, and the dam could go dark. To keep the dam itself functioning without turbine power, the operators would be forced to rely on what remains of the Western Power Grid.

At a date uncertain, Colorado River water will no longer flow via gravity to the Lower Basin, which includes the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead and beyond. Just 149-feet down the hydrological ladder from Lake Powell's current elevation is “dead pool,” at 3,370 feet elevation. At a steady rate of decline, dead pool will occur in late 2028. There is no guarantee that the rate of decline will remain steady.

Lake Mead –

Sequestered behind the venerable Hoover Dam, Lake Mead began filling in 1935. As with Lake Powell, upstream, Lake Mead was last full in July 1983. With occasional fluctuations to the upside, it has been draining and evaporating ever since. Currently, it stands at 1,038 feet elevation, only three feet above the “Power Cliff Threshold.” To prevent “cavitation” at 1,035 feet elevation, twelve of Hoover Dam’s seventeen power turbines will then go offline. Some reports say that the twelve high speed turbines are already offline. The remaining five power turbines have an “open blade” design which allows continued flow, for now. When the twelve turbines stop spinning, seventy percent of Hoover Dam’s electrical power production will cease.

When Lake Mead reaches minimum power pool at 950 feet elevation, all electrical power production at Hoover Dam will conclude. Water will still pass through the dam through gravity until dead pool, at 895 feet elevation. With limited water releases coming from Lake Powell, no one knows for certain when Lake Mead will reach any of these milestones.

One thing is sure. Even if dead pool occurs, the newest of Las Vegas’ water intakes, completed in 2015 will still draw “fresh water” for the city. Commonly known as “The Third Straw,” it is located in the depths of Lake Mead at 860 feet elevation. The Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) currently draws up to 242,000-acre-feet of water annually from Lake Mead. It also discharges 224,000-acre-feet of treated wastewater directly into Lake Mead.

As a great gift to humanity, the SNWA cleans its discharge by an extra four percent, compared to its semi-polluted inflow. The second and third straw intakes are near the rapidly receding and eroding Boulder Beach. After processing, the treated water outfall is at the aptly named Las Vegas Bay. Depending on the water level at the time, the geographic distance between inflow and outfall is six or seven miles.

In late July 2026, the heavy lift system used to build Hoover Dam in the 1930s experienced an unexpected movement and shutdown. Only the heavy lift system can raise and lower power turbine components into the bowels of the dam. Until engineers resolve the heavy lift issue, the twelve oldest power turbines will remain idle and in place. With the reservoir declining and the heavy lift system in question, the future of power production at Hoover Dam is unclear. Do the water managers recognize that further replacement of power turbines at Hoover Dam is a lost cause?

– Implications

Fifty years ago, in 1976, Don Henley of The Eagles rock group wrote a song called “Life in the Fast Lane.” Since 1935, we, the people of the Southwest, have been living in that fast lane. Even today, The Eagles lyrics seem apropos:

"Call the doctor, I think I'm gonna crash. The doctor says he's comin', but you gotta pay in cash. They went rushin' down that freeway, messed around and got lost. They didn't care, they were just dyin' to get off, and it was...Life in that fast lane.”

As the elevation of Lake Mead drops, the receding water pulls vast amounts of lakeshore mud into the reservoir. Visible from space, the turgid water drifts inexorably toward Hoover Dam. This phenomenon, known as “the delta effect,” manifests as an underwater silt stream. All that dense silt, formerly compacted by the heavy, deep water above it, is now on the move. Based on hydrological surveys, silt has now topped the original cofferdam, which lies submerged upstream of the Hoover Dam we know today. As it flows into the final depression at the base of the dam, the silt settles into an uneasy mixture more than one hundred feet high. As such, it approaches the lowest elevation power turbine intakes. If it reaches that level, the five remaining power turbines, unable to digest the corrosive silt, will be retired.

The SNWA, anticipating at least the water level portion of this story, spent over one billion dollars to create its “last gasp,” also known as “The Third Straw.” At a time uncertain, that water intake, feeding the water taps in Las Vegas, will start sucking silt from the dead pool. Soon thereafter, whole system could cavitate and collapse. So too will the water supply of approximately three million Southern Nevada residents.

Where do the forty million people who rely on the Colorado River stand today? Soon, twelve power turbines at Hoover Dam will go dark. Then, the power turbines at Glen Canyon Dam will cease operation. Soon thereafter, Lake Powell will slacken to dead pool, followed by cessation of power production at Hoover Dam. Finally, no water will pass downstream from Hoover Dam, which currently irrigates alfalfa and winter vegetables in the Imperial Valley and provides drinking water to Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, and Tucson.

After all of the flowing water disappears from the Colorado River, and one hundred years after its namesake event, there will be a “reverse Dust Bowl” migration. Without adequate or affordable water and power supplies throughout the Desert Southwest, millions of residents will migrate to regions where sufficient water and power still exist, if only briefly.

I have been publicly calling for the decommissioning of Glen Canyon Dam and the draining of Lake Powell since 2015. As I did then, I would like to say that it is time for bold action. But now, as the hydrological dominoes along the Colorado River continue to fall, it may be too late.

Email James McGillis