No lawyer can convince the river not to run dry; the Southwest is out of water and time

Water levels in Lake Mead have fallen lower than at any time since the reservoir filled nearly nine decades ago.

The nation’s largest manmade reservoir, the water behind Hoover Dam and a foundation of life in the desert Southwest, has sunk to a record-low elevation of roughly 1,040 feet above sea level. The famous bathtub ring surrounding the lake is no longer merely a striking illustration of temporary drought. It is a warning gauge for a water system approaching failure.

The next threshold is frighteningly close.

If Lake Mead falls another 5 feet, Hoover Dam’s hydropower generating capacity could plunge by 70%, according to the Bureau of Reclamation. Federal projections indicate the reservoir could reach that elevation as soon as next year.

Five feet may sound like a comfortable margin until you consider that evaporation alone costs Lake Mead roughly 6 feet annually. During the hottest, driest periods, the lake can decline more than 4 inches in a single day. Worse, the decline is accelerating: Half of the 10 steepest single-day drops recorded during the past five years occurred in 2026.

And below the threat to hydropower lies an even more ominous line.

At roughly 900 feet, Lake Mead reaches “dead pool,” when the reservoir becomes too low for water to flow downstream. The consequences would be catastrophic. Farms, indigenous tribes and communities across the Lower Basin would face extraordinary disruption. Southern California and Arizona would confront a water emergency unlike anything in modern Western history.

Dead pool cannot be treated as an abstraction to be debated by lawyers while the reservoirs drain.

Yet the seven Colorado River Basin states remain divided over who should conserve and by how much.

California, with its enormous agricultural and urban demands, must recognize that senior water rights cannot manufacture water that no longer exists. It is in the unique position among Colorado River basin states, however, to desalinate ocean water. And Upper Basin states, particularly Utah, cannot insist that conservation is primarily somebody else’s responsibility.

Communities like Las Vegas and Tucson, Ariz. — the two most water-wise communities in the Southwest, have demonstrated what adaptation can look like.

Despite adding more than 700,000 new residents, Southern Nevada uses less water today than it did in 2002. As a result, the Silver State used only about two-thirds of our allotted Colorado River water in 2025. Similar results have been realized in Tucson, where individual water use has declined by more than a third.

Those gains are the product of tireless efforts by entities such as the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which has invested heavily in recycling, conservation and infrastructure designed for a shrinking reservoir. They are also the result of academic research centers such as the Desert Research Institute and the University of Arizona Arid Lands Studies Department. Such academic centers are unique to UNLV and UA, and demonstrate the tangible real-world benefits that universities bring to their communities: housing experts that can educate and advise decision makers on complex matters that are vital to the public.

But Nevada and Arizona cannot save the Colorado River or restore Lake Mead on our own. Other states must demonstrate comparable urgency.

Doing so requires something more fundamental than renegotiating percentages under the century-old Colorado River Compact. The West needs to abandon the outdated thinking embodied in the so-called “Law of the River.”

The original system was flawed from its beginning. Water was divided on assumptions drawn from unusually wet conditions, producing paper entitlements to more water than the river could reliably provide — even at that time, let alone now. Climate change, warming temperatures and more than two decades of punishingly dry conditions have exposed the consequences of that error.

We need a new law of the river based on water that actually exists. And a law adaptable as conditions continue to change adversely.

That framework must prioritize safe and reliable drinking water ahead of corporate profits or historic legal seniority.

Agriculture must also change. Farmers deserve financial and technical assistance to continue the transition toward efficient practices and crops that provide meaningful nutrition for Americans and their livestock. However, in a basin approaching dead pool, scarce water cannot be treated simply as an input for water-intensive, low-nutrition luxury crops or commodities grown primarily because they can be profitably exported. Keeping nutrient-rich foods affordable for working-class families is more essential to a thriving economy than short-term profit taking.

In broad terms, the story of the West has always been defined by land and water. The current toxic posture of the parties negotiating the pact represents the modern equivalent of poisoning a well. We all lose, for generations to come.

Beyond conservation, the federal government should dramatically expand investment in sustainable alternatives to Colorado River water. That includes comprehensively mapping groundwater reserves so communities understand what supplies exist and how quickly they can safely be replenished. It means accelerating research, infrastructure and deployment of water recycling, capture and purification. And it means developing desalination where the technology can be environmentally and economically sustainable.

None of those investments eliminates the immediate necessity of using less Colorado River water.

The West spent a century behaving as though legal allocations could command nature to deliver a predetermined quantity of water. Nature is now delivering its verdict.

Cities, farms and industries throughout the entire basin must all adapt.

The alternative is visible from Hoover Dam: a widening white ring around a disappearing reservoir, with dead pool waiting below.

The river does not care which state has the better lawyer or the older piece of paper.

When the water is gone, everyone loses.