In the middle of a parched summer in the arid West, any amount of rain can feel like a gift. But in reality, those precious summer showers barely move the needle when it comes to water.
Federal officials say it may be necessary to reduce water deliveries to users on the Colorado River to prevent the shutdown of a huge dam that supplies hydropower to some 5 million customers across the U.S. West
Lake Powell is in crisis. The nation’s second-largest reservoir is strained by more than two decades of drought, and its water levels are slipping dangerously low.
A massive reservoir known as a boating mecca dipped below a critical threshold on Tuesday raising new concerns about a source of power that millions of people in the U.S. West rely on for electricity.
Emergency water releases from reservoirs upstream of Lake Powell have begun to preserve the nation’s second-largest reservoir’s ability to generate hydroelectric power.
The government is expected to issue its first water shortage declaration for the river, which supplies more than 40 million people. That will mean hardships for farms, recreation and Indian tribes.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Legislation in Utah is raising concerns as seven Western states prepare to negotiate how to sustain a river that supplies 40 million people and a massive agricultural industry.
Dry conditions are the worst they’ve been in almost 20 years across the Colorado River watershed, which acts as the drinking and irrigation water supply for 40 million people in the American Southw
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Projections for water levels in two massive lakes in the U.S. West are expected to remain high enough to avert severe cuts in states that rely on the Colorado River.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Officials say more than 1,100 public comments were submitted for the proposed Lake Powell Pipeline designed to pump water to two southern Utah counties.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Environmental groups that have long pushed to bring down a huge Colorado River dam along the Arizona-Utah border are suing the federal government.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah officials say they have shaved $100 million off the estimated price of a proposed pipeline that would pull water from Lake Powell.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — An invasive mussel that has taken up residence in Lake Powell on the Colorado River is threatening Utah's push to develop a $1.8 billion pipeline to deliver water to fast-growing areas.
The National Park Service is warning people to keep cars and boats at Lake Powell at least 200 yards from the shoreline due to quickly rising water levels.
Representatives from seven states along with federal water managers met at the Hoover Dam Monday to sign a historic agreement on how to deal with the ongoing drought in the West.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation projects as much as 9 million acre-feet of water will be released from Lake Powell into Lake Mead in 2019, which might help prevent a water shortage declaration next year.
Utah and U.S. government officials will begin a study to determine the extent of mining pollution in Lake Powell.
The study begins in the next few days, and it will involve the digging up of heavy metals washed into Lake Powell by flash flooding over several decades.
Scientists from the Colorado River Research Group say water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell are dropping to dangerous levels, reflecting what they described as the Colorado River's worsening "structural deficit."
