Can Lake Mead Still Be Saved?
Lake Mead was created by the damming of the Colorado River and construction of the Hoover Dam, in 1935. The huge reservoir stretches over the border between Arizona and Nevada. Today, the lake is short of water. A major drought and a growing demand for water in nearby cities has stressed Lake Mead and the rest of the Colorado River Basin. A graph at the visitor center tracks the water’s decline. The chart stops at 2006. But, a park ranger says, “it just keeps going down from there.” Will it ever stop? Now there are fears that global warming could severely cut the Colorado River’s flow. Las Vegas, Nevada, takes 90% of its water from Lake Mead. Even though the city’s population continues to grow, Las Vegas’s overall water use has dropped since 2002. If the rest of the Southwest can follow Las Vegas’s lead, there still may be hope for Lake Mead.
