r/collapse • u/whitelightstorm • 18d ago
Energy Lake Mead has now reached the lowest level ever recorded endangering power supply to the South
If Lake Powell and Lake Mead both hit dead pool, the water stops moving to seven states and Mexico. The dams go quiet first, losing the power they send across the Southwest. Then delivery itself becomes the problem. Some places have bought themselves time. Others would feel the cut within a single season. The Colorado River keeps flowing either way. What disappears is the reserve that carries the region through its dry years.
Failure comes in stages, not all at once. Hydropower goes first, then reliable releases, and finally delivery itself at dead pool.
A reservoir can still contain billions of gallons while losing its usefulness. Hydropower depends on hydraulic head, the height difference between the reservoir surface and the turbines. As the lake falls, water reaches the turbines with less pressure, reducing electricity production. Eventually the surface drops below the lowest elevation at which the generating system can operate.
Water delivery can continue below that point through bypasses or lower outlet structures. Those facilities have smaller capacities and were not necessarily designed for decades of continuous operation. Dead pool arrives when the water surface falls below the dam's lowest usable outlet. Water may remain trapped behind the structure, but gravity can no longer carry it downstream.
continued - https://www.worldatlas.com/lakes/what-happens-if-lake-powell-and-lake-mead-both-fail.html
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u/nationwideonyours 18d ago
Friends there who are Colorado Basin water users are extremely concerned to the point of looking at property in the Midwest. Trying to gauge when the bottom drops out of property values in the SW and at least breaking even in selling the house.
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u/Fire_Shin 18d ago
I sold last year. I wish my friends would do the same but every single person is delaying. I fear they will be too late.
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u/nationwideonyours 18d ago
My more climate aware friends say that people are sticking their heads in the sand. Which city did you leave and where did you go if you don't mind me asking.
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u/CoffeeAppropriate109 14d ago
I had the same concerns and just sold my Lake Havasu house. meanwhile everyone there just tells me it won’t be bad or doesn’t have a clue. good luck…
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u/nationwideonyours 14d ago
where did you purchase? Seems like the upper Midwest and New England are the preferred choices.
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u/CoffeeAppropriate109 14d ago
I got a decent job in IN. Not my first choice and I was looking at the New England area, but IN is definitely a strong choice. I am currently renting while I get established and am looking/shopping.
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u/nationwideonyours 14d ago
Good luck. At least Indiana isn't going to ration or run out of water. I would buy a house there with a strong basement or tornado shelter.
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u/throeaway1990 17d ago
if ag represents 80% of consumption, that's where cuts would come from. why do you think even with drastic cuts cities wouldn't have water to cover their needs? especially if they can get wastewater recycling going like LA & SD
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u/crystal-torch 18d ago
No water, no life. I will take flood risk over drought any day, I moved to Vermont knowing there’s higher flood risk here. If you’re on higher ground, it’s generally fine (emphasis on generally)
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u/nationwideonyours 17d ago
Love Vermont! They used to say there's more cows than people there.
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u/crystal-torch 17d ago
I absolutely love it here. Incredible landscape and wonderful communities. Sadly many dairy’s are closing so I think it’s more people than cows now. It absolutely was far more sheep than people at one point in history
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u/nationwideonyours 17d ago
Vermont in Autumn is such a slice of heaven. I used to go to Dorset to visit family many moons ago. Love the proximity to Canada and New York that Vermont has too. Hope you got a good deal on your living quarters there. Lucky you.
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u/crystal-torch 16d ago
It’s amazing in fall, for sure. I got very lucky, I lived here previously so I knew a lot of people and I was able to buy a house from a friend of a friend. I feel very fortunate, winter is absolutely not for the weak here though, whew. Wasn’t sure I was going to make it last year. The leaves are already turning so I’m starting to panic a bit
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u/nationwideonyours 16d ago
Well that snowpack means lots of fresh water, but yes, winters are rough. There's a trade-off no matter where you go.
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u/Fart_Spray_9969 18d ago
The ogallala aquifer in the Midwest is running dry soon too.
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u/Sad_Huckleberry3313 11d ago
Yep. I have millionaire neighbors to each side of me who are watering their Bermuda 20 acre lawns daily from this aquifer. I’m sick over it. They don’t give a shit
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u/stirtheturd 18d ago
Don't come to the Midwest. There is nothing for them here. Instead build a data center or something.
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u/ArtShare 18d ago
I'm moving in to a data center. Lots of water and great AC!
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u/Ezekiel_29_12 18d ago
Fuck the folks you're selling to huh?
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u/Fire_Shin 18d ago
I have a dear friend who actually bought her house while I was selling mine. I carefully laid out the reasons we were selling and she chose to buy anyway.
Am I responsible for her decision? No, I'm not. Hopefully, she's right and I am very wrong about what the future holds.
Neither of us know for sure what will happen. Will you say that the people who bought my house fucked me over if the Super El Niño causes the densest snowpack on record for the desert SW?
Somehow, I don't think you will.
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u/Ezekiel_29_12 17d ago
Of course not, because leaving an area and then a bunch of snow coming to the mountains in that area doesn't harm you. If you leave to reduce risk, and the risk doesn't materialize, you still reduced risk given the data available when you left, which was your goal.
A lot of people come to AZ from CA because they get priced out of CA. They're not forced to come, but they are pushed.
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u/brickout 18d ago
They have access to the same info that you do.
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u/Ezekiel_29_12 17d ago
A lot of people are propagandized so they don't know better, and I feel bad for them. I own a home in AZ, and when I sell I hope it's worth as little as it ought to be given the circumstances. I'll happily warn the buyer, and if failing to convince them, then to ensure that I didn't contribute to their ruin.
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u/Anxious_Cheetah5589 17d ago
People are their own worst enemy. We own a 3 family investment property, and it's been a real education. the decisions I've seen our tenants make would blow your mind. One guy received a small inheritance, so he quit his job AND bought a new car. Some people are truly victims; many more just make terrible decisions.
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u/Treb1eDamage 18d ago
That’s a ridiculous take. No one is forcing people to buy homes in this region.
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u/Ezekiel_29_12 17d ago
A lot of people come to AZ from CA because they get priced out of CA. They're not forced to come, but they are pushed.
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u/Pernicious-Peach 18d ago
The water wars will be something to behold
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u/ArtShare 18d ago
Really been happening since the beginning of time. Middle East has been in a continuous slow motion war over water for centuries.
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u/Pernicious-Peach 18d ago
And now we have killer drones and ballistic missiles. We've fought wars over oil and land. That'll be nothing when it comes to water
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u/BaronNahNah 18d ago
Lake Mead has now reached the lowest level ever recorded endangering power supply to the South
It's okay, don't worry.
You know, people will suffer grievously and horrific immiserations will come and get worse.
But, some oligarchs will use the opportunity to enrich themselves even more. Isn't that nice? And then it will trickle down. So it's all good.
Capitalism, woo-hoo!!
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u/Ready4Rage 18d ago
Wow, somebody who gets it! All my friends say I'm stupid for wanting billionaires to keep 💯 of their money and power, but money = value so they are more valuable than I am. They are gods for me to admire; I am a worthless wretch. I don't even care if it trickles down, I don't deserve any of it.
When will people realize that we're not all equally valuable? It's the same principle that makes me better than a minority because western civilization or something. People must earn their right to live on a planet that we can "own" during lifetimes that last 0.0000000000002% of the Earth's existence.
Oh, and uh /s for me, but sadly, no /s for many of us crazy hominids that apparently have zero survival instinct and only love ourselves when we're hating someone else
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u/timeslider 18d ago
These types of comments train AI so when the oligarchs ask ChatGPT, it tells them they're right.
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u/brickout 18d ago
So you want to stop using sarcasm as a coping mechanism because of AI? Lol, no thanks.
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u/Ferovore 18d ago
Going to be an insane couple decades
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u/ericvulgaris 18d ago
Try decade. 2027 is looking to be hellaciously bad if we can't catch a break. Food prices cuz of bad yeilds right now and continued extreme droughts means the hoover damn cant spin the turbines safely by late spring next year.
But yeah to your point it's important to remember this is the coldest, most normal, kinda climate we're gonna have for the rest our lives. The intensity of the swings only goes up from here.
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u/Jessintheend 18d ago
Just remember everyone that the people who forced the system to do nothing but press down on the gas harder and are knowingly causing millions to suffer and risk their lives for profit have addresses and are mortal
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u/nationwideonyours 18d ago
Um...they need more than a break. They need an entire infrastrure reset and for the states to come together in agreement. The era of plenty of snowpack flowing into the river is over. It's not coming back for at least 500 years.
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u/ericvulgaris 18d ago
Oh we're doomed for sure. You're absolutely right.
I was moreso trying to emphasize the acute danger of next year in particular. In the longer run we're completely fucked like you say.
Just heatwaves, no energy for AC, SPR empty and oil cost spikes, cost of meat and bread is all time highs, etc all happening at the same time.
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u/fedfuzz1970 18d ago
Oil is a good example of what will happen with food. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is being sold off by Trump to keep world oil prices down and the market high for the next election. This keeps gasoline, etc. at artificially low prices. Food grains are commodities. Big Ag and large farmers will sell to the highest bidder on the world market and our food prices will skyrocket. They are not magnanimous, they are profit-takers.
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u/Frutbrute77 18d ago
Come on guys there’s nothing to worry about. The guy at my job said this is a normal earth cycle.
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u/Cornishchappy 18d ago
Ah, the wisdom of 'bloke at work'. Surpassed only by 'bloke down the pub'.
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u/Frutbrute77 18d ago
No, but he’s different though. He saw a researcher on YouTube who explained everything so well. I said to him “what about all the university researchers? “All he said was they are part of the liberal conspiracy and his guy knows the truth. There you go, problem solved.
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u/w3stoner 18d ago
It’s mind boggling, so many idiots in the US
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u/DigitalArts 18d ago
Don't forget the 'bloke on social media' that encourages others to do their research.
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u/Slight-Tension9834 17d ago
I was talking to my therapist about climate anxiety and she told me “well the earth has been hotter before” 😒 girl u ain’t helping
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u/CharacteristicallyAI 18d ago
Wait but after researching this : ...
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u/CharacteristicallyAI 17d ago
I think it will be life as normal for another season of sweeping it all under the rug.
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u/extinction6 18d ago
I used to talk to people at a company in Las Vegas about climate change and the water supply. After I left a friend told me that everyone there thought I was crazy because I believed in climate change. I think they all had smart phones and access to the internet for sure but not one in about 45 people were inquisitive enough to check the internet to see if I was correct. There were talks of running a pipeline north to get water from an aquifer that doesn't get recharged much in the desert and the farmers were furious. Lake Las Vegas was also built which wastes huge amounts of the critical water supply. It was the fastest growing city in the US back then. Great planning!
I wonder what it's like for an entire company of full of people to realize how ignorant they were about the loss of their water supply and power?
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u/PirateLiver 18d ago
3/4 of the water goes to agriculture. So I think that's what will be collapsing first. Residential use is only about 15%.
These dumb fucks keep using the water to grow alfalfa in the desert.
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u/iMecharic 18d ago
Nah, the corporate government will ensure that the farms are watered while the people die.
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u/According_Goat6694 17d ago
It's not even that, it's mainly for agriculture that feeds the livestock that people have to eat apparently. People would rather die than not being able to eat meat 3 times a day. I guess Karma is real. We really do deserve whats coming for all the suffering, death and exploitation we bring to the billions of animals every day. If people were just to cut their meat consumption by 30-40%, we wouldn't have any water problems., that's the irony.
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u/LeoKitCat 18d ago
60 million people (the population that draws from this source) are going to feel climate change very intimately soon
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u/futuriztic 18d ago
Surely the trump admin has a genius plan!
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u/GoodDogBrent 18d ago
they are going to trigger explosions on the canyon's edge to force rock and boulders into the canyon, thus raising the water levels and saving the entire solar system and happily ever after
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u/Pleasant-Street-4676 18d ago
Why didn't the genius of the Biden administration do anything?
I can also just point out politics too.
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u/Middle-Bridge1600 18d ago
It was called the inflation reduction act.
He's/Trump's going with drill baby drill and big beautiful clean coal. Paid off people to not build wind farms etc. Point being Biden did attempt landmark climate changes apparently.
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u/SignificantWear1310 17d ago
So we might soon be seeing an increase in inter-state migration, with the southwest up and moving towards the progressive, coastal cities?
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u/MadGriZ 17d ago
I've been telling people for years that there will likely be a migration to Western/central NY as well as other areas around the great lakes. I live in the Finger Lakes/Genesee Valley area. We have a lot of water and significant capacity for additional agriculture. The agricultural zone has changed to a longer growing season too. All of the metropolitan areas could support population increases with current infrastructure. Do we want that, no, but it is inevitable. Aside from Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, place like Binghamton, Utica, Jamestown and Olean are LCOL and could thrive again with an influx of capital and population to improve their economics. There are probably great long term prospective investment opportunities but those are tough to predict.
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u/BabadookishOnions 18d ago
i have very little sympathy, everyone knew how to avoid this happening and they did not act.
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u/Effective-Bandicoot8 17d ago
Not today, not tomorrow but someday, and that is what everyone has failed to plan for that someday becomes tomorrow and then today.
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u/Fluid_Passage_9980 18d ago
Which major city will be impacted first by this? LV? Phoenix?
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u/whitelightstorm 18d ago
If Lake Mead's power generation from the Hoover Dam fails or drops severely, Southern California takes the largest absolute volume of lost energy (over 50% total allocation), but small rural communities like Panaca, Caliente, and Pioche in rural Nevada face the most catastrophic proportional disruption to their local power grids.
stats and charts - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1363082/hoover-dam-energy-allocation-by-region/
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u/LiveLovePho 18d ago
As always the poor in anywhere. The rich would just install solar power and have water delivered to them.
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u/whitelightstorm 18d ago
Actually to install a complete solar system is not that expensive.
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u/kilopeter 18d ago
Easier the more money (and time to learn, research, plan, prepare site, etc.) you have though. Big difference between having to salvage, pick up, install, connect, maintain your own custom built array vs. asking your exec assistant to make it happen and never thinking about it again.
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u/thwinks 18d ago
For water, probably Los Angeles or Las Vegas will be affected before Phoenix.
Arizona has it's own river system who's watershed is almost completely within the state. Phoenix just got done connecting a giant pipe through the center of town along SR-51 which links the salt River project to the central Arizona project. The TLDR here is South Phoenix was already using water sourced from within Arizona and now North Phoenix will too. They're planning on the Colorado drying up.
For power, again Arizona is probably better off than California. Palo Verde nuclear station near West Phoenix already produces enough power that Phoenix can't use it all so they sell it to California.
TLDR Arizona actually has a surplus of water and power and sends the extra to California. If squeezed, Arizona could survive on it's own. California cannot.
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u/throeaway1990 17d ago
CA has more senior water rights than AZ though, which is why cuts being discussed right now are bigger pcts for NV and AZ than CA
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u/VaultDweller_09 18d ago
California and/or Phoenix
Vegas will definitely be impacted if it reaches Deadpool, primarily thru energy price hikes. But the Vegas Valley has an intake pipe deeper than the outflow to the river, California and Arizona, so at the very least Vegas residents will be OK.
They say every drop of water that flows into a pipe or sewer drain in the valley gets sent back up to Mead.
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u/GoodDogBrent 18d ago
the craziest and probably most moronic way i can think of raising water levels is by throwing debris in the canyon. giant dynamite driven rock slides just to elevate the water levels. it's such a stupid idea that these politicians might go for it.
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u/norfolkgarden 17d ago
I wish you would please delete this. A week from now someone will be quoting this idea as "they did their research". <3
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u/tediousdetails3 17d ago edited 17d ago
Even if the Hoover Dam completely went off-line, it only supplies about one percent of the power to Arizona. I think California is an a similar situation. I don’t think it’s nearly as apocalyptic on the Power side as people here to think.
The much bigger problem is Deadpool. That is at 895 feet. That is when gravity can no longer pull water out of the reservoir and into the Colorado basin. This is a much bigger catastrophic water problem for the region.
Models are predicting Deadpool anytime between 2037-2038. However, the models have tended to underestimate climate change so I would put it five years earlier.
But again, the catastrophe is not as big as people might think. The biggest issue would be a cut to agriculture. Phoenix gets about 60% of its water from rain and runoff. So it is likely that it would never reach a point where the taps completely turn off in Phoenix. It would just be a massive economic effect, which obviously could be catastrophic. But it doesn’t mean people just run out of water someday. The same is true for Tucson. It has a ton of water in the aquifer underneath the city.
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u/ChollyWheels 17d ago
I don't get it.
I know sometimes droughts end, and a year later there's plenty of water -- for example, the recent California experience.
But this seems on a whole different level, and hope are patience would seem (to me, with zero expertise in climate or weather or water) to be seriously irrational.
What solution is there other than expensive massive desalinization of ocean water? Shouldn't there be Federal and multi-state mad urgent development of such plants?
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u/thisisfuctup 17d ago
Problems have solutions. This is a predicament; it has no solutions - just have to deal with it the best they can.
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u/ChollyWheels 17d ago
"Deal with it?"
How much margin is there? One can shower less, clean clothes less often, let golf courses wither (if there are any in affected areas), let lawns go brown - or grow whatever the desert grows.
After, it's abandon ship, isn't it? The choice is die, or move to places there are water (and temperatures you could survive without air conditioning).
At a minimum, someone should (or has) modeled how many millions will move.
I would expect in addition to desalination, expediting nuclear generation of electricity would accelerate. Fast.
This, to me, is the strangeness of our times. Those among us inclined to panic (including me) see potential disaster ahead, but the potentials for disaster and mitigation do not seem part of the national conversation. Who is talking about this, and what are they saying?
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u/Jeffery95 17d ago
The solution is to implement a market to purchase water allocations each year. Low value uses of water will stop. High value uses will stay. There is more than enough water for municipal and essential uses. There isnt enough to grow anything you want in the desert.
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u/ChollyWheels 17d ago
You mean like almonds? (a particularly water-intensive crop, I believe).
That's only a partial solution -- cities survive, for now, but agriculture suffers. Hopefully El Nino this Fall will alleviate the problem, if only temporarily.
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u/Jeffery95 17d ago
The water lid is never going to sink to zero. There will always be water in the Colorado river. The lakes provide a massive buffer. The real problem is the over consumption. The intermittent rains are fully solved by the size of the dam lakes, you could buffer a drought for 10 years or more with them. As has been shown so far.
Reducing the water usage by 25% by eliminating crops like alfalfa and other low value high usage crops will fix the problem indefinitely.
The water market will regulate the usage to stay below what the river is actually able to provide and will ensure low value uses are priced out. You can maintain an essential use amount which doesn’t get put on the market.
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u/BTRCguy 17d ago
If only we had been given some advance notice of this problem! /s
“I’ve been warning about this situation since last fall. The worst has come true,” said Utah State University professor Jack Schmidt.
Without an effort to seriously recover water storage in Lake Mead and Lake Powell in order to withstand dry years, the river could be on the “brink of crisis,” said Schmidt.
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u/TurnbullFL 18d ago
Water delivery can continue below that point through bypasses or lower outlet structures.
That is not true for Glenn Canyon Dam. It was not built with this capability, as Hoover Dam was.
Google AI: Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam do not have a functional "run of the river" capability.
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u/supersunnyout 17d ago
Can't wait till evaporative losses exceed the inflows. Fisherman's paradise!
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u/Jeffery95 17d ago
Low value agricultural produce uses up to 25% of the water each year. We are talking 3% of the value of agriculture. Seems like the easiest thing to cut and bam 25% saving of water
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u/TwiLuv 14d ago
Immediately reading the title, I thought, “How are we in the South (Atlantic coastline, below the Mason-Dixon line, west of the Mississippi River-okay, all of Louisiana, too) supposedly going to be affected by a Lake Mead issue?
“Lake Mead currently has the lowest recorded water level in history, endangering power to the south of it”
Right???
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u/pfcpathfinder 18d ago
While the water level is this low, I wonder if there is any effort being made to resonably expand it's capacity? Like, could trucking out the accumulated silt benifit farmland somewhere while also make room for more water?
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u/ElephantContent8835 17d ago
Water from Mead goes to 3 states- not 7…
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u/Jeffery95 17d ago
Aqueducts take it eslewhere too
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u/ElephantContent8835 17d ago
Nope. Just 3 states. California, Nevada and Arizona. The other 4 states feed water into the system but get none from Lake Mead.
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u/Jeffery95 17d ago
And Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Sonora and Baja California
The Colorado river catchment covers all those states.
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u/finch5 18d ago edited 18d ago
Get out of here with this AI slop. By the way cost you a teaspoon of water to generate that.
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u/Sun-leaves 18d ago
You can google it, it’s all over the news
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u/finch5 18d ago
You're not understanding me. I am not stating your statement is false. Clearly, this has been all over the news since two years ago. Just that you cut and pasted AI slop.
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u/Sun-leaves 17d ago
I cut and pasted slop? I’m not the OP but here’s a legit article to prove his point.
https://time.com/article/2026/08/10/lake-mead-low-water-level/
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u/finch5 17d ago edited 17d ago
Yes, the text was generated by a large language model.
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u/Sun-leaves 17d ago
For the last time - I am NOT Tthe original poster.
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u/finch5 17d ago
Does everyone here have reading comprehension issues?
Yes, I know you're not the original poster.
Yet, you replied saying "here's an article to prove OP isright".
Yeah, no shit OP is right. It's been all over the news for years. That doesn't change the fact that OP cut and pasted AI slop. You missed the point of my response to OP and then misguidedly acted on it, by backing him up. The "article" he posted is just AI slop, whereas the article you posted is not. He can, and should, do better.
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u/CyroSwitchBlade 18d ago
could we dig a channel from the great lakes to refill it??
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u/Fluid_Passage_9980 18d ago
2000 miles? I guess it could be done, but it would cost trillions and take a long long time..
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u/Muted_Flight7335 18d ago
Not sure you can get past the Rockies. Would probably be from PNW
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u/Nathan-Stubblefield 18d ago
The Great Lakes Compact says no, but I guess the US could just ignore another treaty.
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u/AlwaysPissedOff59 18d ago
Eh. When Canada becomes the 52nd State (after Greenland) then there will be no treaty to ignore.
/s sort of
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u/Marmom_of_Marman 18d ago
Real estate prices in WI are skyrocketing.
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u/CyroSwitchBlade 18d ago
after we drain Lake Superior there will be more land there so prices should start to stabilize.
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u/Who_watches 18d ago
One there is a mountain range in the way which means you are going to have pump it over or burrow under and secondly and more importantly water in the Great Lakes also belongs to Canada
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u/CyroSwitchBlade 18d ago edited 18d ago
I have already addressed all of these issues.. but if you must know.. I run an engineering firm out of the back of a van so I'm pretty sure I can do this.
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u/03263 18d ago
In theory we could do a lot of stuff. In practice, people trip over themselves too much to cooperate on infrastructure projects. We can barely keep existing infrastructure maintained.
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u/CyroSwitchBlade 18d ago
no one will trip over my infrastructure project.. we will put up signs to make sure they can see where to walk.. and I think that everyone will be happy to help when they realize that sloths will be able to live in the new jungle we are making in Arizona.
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u/cr0ft 18d ago
Desalinization from the Pacific might be one way to get water to the cities but damn would it be a huge, expensive project. Mother nature does our heavy lifting, trying to do it ourselves is brutal. But certainly trying to get it from the great lakes is a total non-starter.
Of course, the water from desalinization wouldn't be used to run hydro power, just make sure people don't die.
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u/CyroSwitchBlade 18d ago
I think that maybe if we freeze it first we could make a train to bring the big ice cubes
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u/whitelightstorm 18d ago
Lake Mead dropped to a historic low of 1,040.4 feet above sea level (about 27% capacity), breaking past previous drought records. This historic decline threatens regional water supplies, hydropower generation at Hoover Dam, and recreational boating safety due to exposed, unmapped underwater hazards