No Snow. There is no water. Restrictions Expand in West as Drought Fears Rise
FRISCO, Colorado ‒ Stretching out in their beach chairs as the temperature soared to 70 degrees, Seth and Renee McLaughlin watched their three children play in the sand on what was supposed to be a family ski trip.
Booked last November, their spring break vacation to the mountains of Colorado required a drastic change of plans following a historically warm and dry winter: Instead of hitting the slopes, the couple watched their children sift sand from colorful toy buckets on the shores of Lake Dillon.
“It’s obviously frustrating. You want to ski, and usually we ski until May, and instead we’re at the beach,” said Seth McLaughlin, 44, a nonprofit consultant. “I feel bad for the people who spent tens of thousands of dollars to vacation here.”
The McLaughlins’ ruined vacation is a harbinger of what meteorologists say will be a dangerously dry summer across the West. In many areas, significant snowfall has been half of normal, with hotter, drier temperatures expected in the coming months.
Most of the nation is already in drought, but the Colorado River watershed is among the driest, along with southern Texas and all of Florida. Alarmed public officials across the West have already begun ordering restrictions on watering lawns, cleaning cars and requiring diners to get glasses of water.
“We’re already thinking our yard is going to die this year,” said Renee McLaughlin, 44, a physician’s assistant. “And we talk to the kids about taking a five-minute shower.”
The McLaughlins live in a Colorado town that has yet to order water restrictions, but many neighboring communities have already begun using them. Some ski resorts also close early due to the heat and lack of snow.
Longtime western water expert Brad Udall said it’s hard to put into words just how bad things are. He said the early closure of the ski areas will be followed by cattle breeders, then it will be dark due to the smoke of the wildfire as the dry vegetation burns.
For more than two decades, Udall has been studying how climate change is changing the West’s water resources. He said 2026 could go down as the worst year for Colorado River flows in recorded history.
“It’s really sad. It’s scary,” said Udall, a senior climate scientist at Colorado State University’s Colorado Water Center. “The impact will be everywhere, on the whole economy and on you personally. You will feel this firsthand as it happens.”
Based on previous years, water shortages in the West can have a major impact on food prices as crops dry up and cattle dry up. It could also endanger tens of thousands of businesses that depend on industrial water use, and increase the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
Large parts of the West are served by the Colorado River, which begins high in the Rockies before flowing down through Lake Powell, Lake Mead outside Las Vegas, and finally into California.
Climate experts have long warned that climate change will make the West hotter and drier, and they worry that what is happening now represents a long-term shift that could change the way people live and work across Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming. Some water experts say Lake Powell could reach its lowest level later this summer.
And the beach where the McLaughlins’ children played? That’s in Lake Dillon, the primary source of drinking water for millions of Colorado residents today who live less than 60% full. Under normal conditions, the melting ice will replenish the water. Instead, the water remains hundreds of meters from the shore, and the ports are mired in mud. A little water came in, even though it was 70 degrees.
Water Limits and Concerns in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming
■ At Lake Powell, which straddles the Arizona-Utah line, crews are preparing to move the entire Bullfrog Marina float across the stormy lake to the Hall crossing where the water will remain deep for longer. Water managers are warning that the water level in Lake Powell this year could drop to the lowest level recorded since the lake began to fill in the 1960s.
Lake Powell is fed by the Colorado River, and uses the water to generate hydroelectricity for about 500,000 homes across the Southwest. But if the Colorado River’s flow this year is as low as expected, the lake level could drop below what’s known as “lake capacity,” or the minimum level needed to run turbines.
When it first opened, Lake Powell was large enough to warrant a 30-minute car ferry that transported vehicles between Hall’s Crossing in the south and Bullfrog in the north, saving drivers two hours of travel. The boat is no longer moving because the loading lanes are too far from the water’s edge. Many of the lake’s boat launches hang hundreds of feet above the water’s surface, and crews stretch again and again to reach new shores. Last year, about 3.7 million visitors visited Lake Powell.
■ In Utah, drought-preparedness officials in Salt Lake City have temporarily banned the opening of any major non-residential development.
Although the move is intended to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials from opening a detention center for 7,500 people, city leaders say it is irresponsible to allow large-scale water use at this time: “New water users are a big problem because of Salt Lake City’s severe drought and water conservation needs,” Menderin said. statement. City and state officials are also considering ways to protect the long-shrinking Great Salt Lake.
Under Mendenhall’s order, city agencies were ordered to reduce their water use by at least 10%, and residents and businesses were asked to voluntarily save 10 million gallons.
■ In Denver, residents have been told to hold off on watering their lawns until the end of May, even as temperatures continue to climb into the 80s across the city. The Denver Water Board on March 25 also limited residential lawn watering to two days per week per home, up from three in normal years. Restaurants are only allowed to serve water to diners who specifically request it. And hotels cannot change sheets more often than four times a week, unless a guest requests it or the room turns over to a new customer.
Because Denver typically gets only about 15 inches of rain a year − Miami gets four times that, by comparison — the city relies heavily on snowmelt to fill reservoirs like Lake Dillon. Water board officials said they are taking drastic measures now to help avoid further problems next summer for their 1.5 million customers across the municipality.
“The conditions we’re facing are unprecedented, and we need customers to conserve water to protect the water we have right now,” said Nathan Elder, Denver Water’s water supply manager, in a statement.
■ In the northern Colorado city of Erie, officials have warned residents and businesses to suspend all watering until early April, and warned that they may shut off water to anyone caught watering their lawns. Erie gets most of its water from melting snow piped across the Continental Divide, and that area has seen unusually heavy snow this winter.
“This is an unusual step in a very critical situation,” city officials said in a March 20 announcement. “Demands are currently 30% higher than normal for this time of year.”
■ In Wyoming, state officials have already told some water users to cut back to save for next summer. And state officials are expected to draw down one of the state’s largest reservoirs, Flaming Gorge, to pump water into Lake Powell during the hot summer months. State Engineer Brandon Gebhart warned other communities to prepare for not having enough drinking water in the coming months.
This article first appeared in USA TODAY: No snow. There is no water. Restrictions are increasing across the West as drought fears rise
Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY / USA TODAY reports
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
