The Colorado River is shrinking. What happens next?

Lake Mead is at its lowest level since it was filled nearly 90 years ago, Lake Powell also at a historic low It was 42C (108F) degrees as we motored across Nevada’ s Lake Mead in our rented pontoon boat. Colby Pellegrino with the Southern Nevada Water Authority wanted to show us something we shouldn’t have been able to see. She pointed toward a rock island where a large metal pipe was sticking out of the water. “That is the first intake that was built to bring municipal water into the valley in 1970,” Pellegrino said.