The Bureau of Reclamation began filling Lake Powell in 1963, flooding narrow canyons that were once so lush with cottonwood trees that John Wesley Powell named the area Glen Canyon.
The reservoir kept climbing, swallowing shrines sacred to several tribes, including the Diné, Hopi, Pueblo and Paiute people. “There’s thousands of years of prayers here,” said Daryl Vigil, co-director of the Water & Tribes Initiative and former water administrator for the Jicarilla Apache Nation.
It took nearly 20 years for Lake Powell to fill to 3,700 feet in elevation. It only stayed near that level for two decades before climate change-induced drought and overuse started shrinking the flows of the Colorado, San Juan and other rivers that feed the reservoir.
Now Lake Powell teeters on the brink of collapse: Forecasts show it could drop to its lowest level since filling and reach elevations at which Glen Canyon Dam was not designed to operate. That could threaten Reclamation’s ability to safely and reliably send water downstream to major cities and agricultural regions in Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico. But environmental groups and scientists have found a silver lining to the Southwest’s water crisis: As Lake Powell recedes, the once-drowned Glen Canyon is surfacing and thriving ecosystems are emerging.
