Two largest reservoirs are at ‘critically low’ levels
LOS ANGELES » At a point in the year when California’s water storage should be at its highest, the state’s two largest reservoirs have already dropped to critically low levels, a sobering outlook for the hotter and drier months ahead.
Shasta Lake, which rises more than 1,000 feet above sea level when filled to the brim, is at less than half of where it usually should be in early May, the driest it has been at this time of year since record-keeping began in 1976. Lake Oroville, the largest reservoir in the State Water Project, a roughly 700-mile lifeline that pumps and ferries water all the way to Southern California, is currently at 55% of total capacity.
In the U.S. Drought Monitor’s latest report, officials described both reservoir conditions as “critically low” going into summer. Other water officials in recent days have called this “the worst drought in the history of the State Water Project.”
This latest reservoir assessment is yet another wake-up call that California, along with much of the West, is in for a parched and challenging summer. Millions of residents across Southern California are facing the harshest-ever water restrictions beginning June 1.
Along the Colorado River, projections show that the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are reaching a shortage so severe that larger water cuts are likely in 2023 for Arizona, Nevada and Mexico, and at some point, California.
Last week, boaters in Lake Mead stumbled across a barrel containing human remains, evidence of a killing that had been hidden for decades by higher water levels. Police said more human remains were discovered at the lake on Saturday.
There is no connection to the first case, investigators
said, and no foul play is suspected.
Authorities expect to uncover
more remains as more of the lake bottom becomes exposed.
This year, California has experienced the driest January, February and March ever recorded. The snowpack, a critical “bank” of water for the state going into the summer, has already melted much faster than expected because of warmerthan-average temperatures. Snowmelt typically makes up almost a third of California’s water supply, and feeds major reservoirs including Shasta during the driest months of the year.
Records continued to shatter on the first day of April, when the annual measurement of water stored in the snowpack turned out to be one of the 10 most dire in recorded history.