Lake Mead sits on the Nevada, Arizona border, and it provides 25 million people access to drinking water up and down the West Coast of the United States. The iconic Hoover Dam is situated at Lake Mead. It’s the largest drinking reservoir in the US, and it’s in a huge crisis. I’m your host Michael Tung, and this is 90SS. Recently, extreme droughts in the Southwest have once again resurfaced in the media. Social media users living in Arizona are demonstrating how hot it is by frying an egg on their sidewalk. While entertaining, it also spells out extremely bad news for the climate community and the public that time is running low to do something about climate change. The US Bureau of Reclamation has stated that the Colorado River Basin is currently experiencing it’s “worst drought in history”. It is so bad to the point where on multiple levels, one can clearly see where the level used to be, compared to where it is now due to the dramatic color change of the rocks. The only factor in the West that is changing is the climate. The term super-drought has started to be thrown around to describe what is happening in Nevada and Arizona, as experts say that this is the worst drought in 400 years within the area. Lake Mead, which provides Las Vegas with 90% of its drinking water is evaporating at a rate higher than which experts had previously expected. It loses at around 6 feet of water per year, and if it drops another 175 feet, water will no longer touch Hoover Dam. In fact, recently Hoover Dam was found to have produced 25% less power than it normally did. The potential failure of Hoover Dam and the extreme droughts could alter life in the West as we know it, potentially even making it an unbearable place to live. Quick action will be required if the West were to be saved from it’s recent extreme climate crisis: it requires the work of the citizens, scientists, and government officials alike to ensure that the planet can remain a place for all species to live.
Kann, Drew. “The Shocking Numbers behind the Lake Mead Drought Crisis.” CNN, Cable News Network, 17 June 2021, www.cnn.com/2021/06/17/us/lake-mead-drought-water-shortage-climate/index.html.
Photo by Ricardo Frantz on Unsplash
