Reservoir on the Colorado River formed by Glen Canyon Dam, a key storage buffer and hydropower source for the Southwest amid prolonged drought.
Lake Powell's surface read 3,517.24 feet on September 10, the lowest on record, after the Upper Colorado Basin's 2025-2026 snowpack came in thin and record warmth took more of it before the melt reached the river.
Reality
Kearny, Arizona, draws from the Gila River, and its own river commissioner made this cut. The federal Colorado River reductions that dominate Southwest water policy do not govern what the town of 2,000 receives.
Reality
Reclamation wants California, Nevada and Arizona off 1.25 million acre-feet a year inside two years. Nevada is suing over reductions of up to 70% next decade, which puts a court date on water-hungry siting in the basin.
Reality
The reservoir is a quarter full, and the 1922 compact still allocates more water than the Colorado yields, so the new federal 10-year plan hands 3.7 billion cubic meters of annual cuts to three states and spares four.
Reality
Interior's 2027-2028 guidelines cut Lower Basin deliveries by about a fifth and exempt four states. The 3-million-acre-foot option still on the table is roughly half of what the Lower Basin takes.
Reality
Mead and Powell set multiple record lows this month, and the reliable wet signal lands where the water is used rather than where the snowpack that refills them piles up.
Reality