A white strip more than 150 feet tall encircles the turquoise surface of Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir, showing visitors how high the water once was, and how far it has fallen
the “bathtub ring”. . The shrinking of Lake Mead and Lake Powell, its sister reservoir upriver, is perhaps the most visible manifestation of the 22-year megadrought that has gripped the American West. The water levels of both have reached record lows. Dip a toe into Lake Mead and it feels shockingly warm for such a large body of water. The canyons drowned when Lake Powell was filled in the 1960s are slowly revealing themselves.
Second, poor policy choices 100 years ago all but guaranteed that the water available to westerners could never meet expectations. After laws such as the Homestead Act encouraged white settlers to move West in the second half of the 19th century, the federal government financed the dams and pipelines needed for cities and agriculture to thrive in the desert.
The region’s rich cities have been planning for this. Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix and Las Vegas all get water from the Colorado River—and all have diversified their water supplies. Investing in conservation, recycling programmes and desalination technology has allowed south-western metros to save water even while their populations have soared.
Meanwhile, some demands on the river are growing. Thanks to generations of neglect, many Native American households do not have access to clean drinking water. Tribes also lack the plumbing needed to take the water they already have rights to. The bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed the Senate last week includes $6bn to help remedy that.
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