Lake Powell

Lake Powell is a remarkable feat of engineering and a reservoir of ongoing controversy. Formed by Glen Canyon Dam, the lake stretches nearly two hundred miles through the canyon country of Arizona and Utah, touching roughly two thousand miles of shoreline when full. At peak capacity it holds about twenty-five million acre-feet of water, making it one of the largest reservoirs in the United States.

The dam's gates closed in nineteen sixty-three, but Lake Powell did not reach full pool for seventeen years, finally filling in nineteen eighty. Wahweap Marina at the lake's southern end became the gateway to a sprawling recreation economy: houseboats, speedboats, kayaks, and guided tours out to Rainbow Bridge deep in the canyon country. In the nineteen eighties and nineties, Lake Powell was the engine of the regional tourist economy.

Then came the drought. After nineteen ninety-nine, the Colorado River Basin entered a prolonged dry period driven in part by climate change. By early two thousand five, Lake Powell had fallen one hundred forty-five feet below full pool.

It briefly recovered, then dropped further still. In April of two thousand twenty-three, the lake hit what was then its lowest recorded point, roughly one hundred eighty feet below its high-water mark, leaving less than a quarter of its capacity, and it has fallen even lower in the years since. The bleached white bathtub ring on the canyon walls made the loss unmistakably visible.

The question of Lake Powell's future is one of the defining water-policy debates of the American West. Its water is allocated among seven states and thirty tribal nations, and the basin already uses more water than the river reliably provides.