The Colorado River Basin Drainage provides life-preserving water to 7 southwestern US States and 3 Mexican States in this arid desert region.  Since 1999/2000 the southwest has been experiencing a severe drought.  Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the two largest reservoirs on the Colorado (and the two largest in the US) provide incontrovertible evidence of the severity of the drought.  The graph above of Lake Mead's water elevation is an ominous indicator of that severity.

Lake Powell runs 186 miles with a capacity of 7.9+ trillion gallons.  In 1999 it was at 97% capacity, by 2004 it had dropped over 100 feet to 33%, a decrease of 5.1 trillion gallons.  Lake Mead, 112 miles long with a capacity of 9+ trillion gallons, was at 96% capacity in 2000, down to 43% in 2008, a decrease of 4.6+ trillion gallons, for a combined loss of 9.7 trillion gallons!  The infamous “bathtub rings” bleached on the rock face by water long gone tell the story.

The links below open photo galleries showing the effects of the drought, with some awesome scenery.

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