The federal government is forcing states to cut the amount of water they can draw from it. That means other states will have to make critical decisions about how they use water.
A megadrought is drying up the Colorado River and depleting the nation's largest man-made reservoir, Lake Mead.
The federal government is forcing states to cut the amount of water they can draw from it. That means other states will have to make critical decisions about how they use water.
“This is a crisis that we haven't seen in history,” Adel Hagekhalil, the general manager of Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District, told CBS News.
Water levels are dangerously low in the western part of the U.S. and officials are warning residents to significantly scale back on their water use. In fact, because of the unprecedented circumstances the area finds itself in, the U.S. Department of the Interior declared its first ever tier-two shortage on the river.
The river provides water to 40 million people in seven states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah. But this is not just a West Coast problem. Federal officials said every single state could be forced to pull back on their water usage.
“It is in our authorities to act unilaterally to protect the system. And we will protect the system,” said U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton.
Climate change is partially to blame for the drought. And now Lakes Powell and Mead are experiencing the worst drought in 1,200 years due to chronic overuse. They now just hold about a quarter of the water they used to. Fishing guides told CBS News they were unable to believe how fast the levels dropped at Lake Powell.
“I'm looking at spots that 30, 40-feet up the wall where my bait was hitting where I was fishing a year ago,” said fisherman Paul McNabb.
If water were to stop flowing under the Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams, millions from Phoenix to Los Angeles would be cut off from water. “We should not get to the day where we turn the faucet, and there's no water,” Hagekhalil said.
Part of President Joe Biden’s newly signed Inflation Reduction Act hopes to prevent that sort of dire situation before it can happen. The bill includes $373 billion to fight climate change, the biggest such package in American history.
