PAGE, Arizona ‒ In the middle of the desert sits a sign: "Caution docks may be slippery."
They are not.
In fact, there's not a drop of water to be seen atAntelope Point Marina, which once sat near the shore of Lake Powell, the nation's second-largest reservoir. The sparkling Colorado River now laps at the Glen Canyon walls about 180 feet below, completely invisible from a dock that once floated atop the water.
Lake Powell water levels falling
Instead of reflecting the bright blue Arizona sky near the Four Corners region of the Southwest, the lake's water level reflects the dire reality that the Colorado River is running out of water. And the dock with the sign dangles off a 100-foot cliff, waiting for a refill that climatologists say will likely never come.
"Things are really, really rough on the Colorado River. It's ugly," said Eric Balken, the executive director of theGlen Canyon Institute. "Everybody is at a place right now where we're all asking, 'what the heck happens now? What are we doing?'"
Now, a public lands access group has proposed an eye-poppingly ambitious plan to build eight massive desalination plants off the California coastline, turning ocean water into fresh for farming, and reducing demand on the ailing Colorado River. To meet the energy demand, the plants might have to be powered with nuclear reactors.
Although desalination plants are widely used in the Middle East, they consume huge amounts of electricity to generate a relatively small amount of water. No country has ever tried something on this scale before.
The Colorado River basin ‒ and the seven states that depend on the river for water ‒ is facing significant shortfalls this summer following an unusually hot and dry winter. The plan's authors at the Idaho-based BlueRibbon Coalition say their $40 billion proposal offers a viable long-term solution at a time when PresidentDonald Trumpis slashing environment-based regulatory delays and encouraging the country to think big.
"At some point we're going to hit a hard reality there's no more water in the Colorado River," said Ben Burr, the coalition's executive director. "You can only squeeze so much more juice out of it."
Some critics say the plan is both utterly unaffordable and potentially catastrophic for the environment.
The BlueRibbon Coalition is undeterred, deliberately invoking the massive federal efforts that built theGlen CanyonandHoover damsand filled Lake Powell and Lake Mead with Colorado River water. Those reservoir projects allowed the United States to flourish in Arizona, Nevada and California, supercharging economic growth, powering cities and turning dusty desert into fertile farmland.
The group's plan is the newest ambitious idea to solve western water woes. Other proposals floated over the decades included towing icebergs from Alaska or Antarctica, diverting rivers from the rainy Pacific Northwest or even piping Great Lakes water thousands of miles west across the Continental Divide.
Peter Goble, the assistant state climatologist for Colorado, said the ongoing drought is increasing pressure on western states to find a solution. The West is warming faster than the country overall, which ultimately means even less water available for farmers, businesses and residents, he said.
"There's no way to look at the numbers and think the Colorado River is doing well right now," Goble said. "In a world that's warmer, all signs point to droughts that will be more intense and more frequent."
Drought, squabbles among states threaten river's future
Seven states ‒ Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming ‒ collaboratively manage and use the Colorado River.
But the amount of water flowing downstream has been dropping due to a long-term drought at the same time, causing squabbles among the states over who gets how much for farming, drinking and industrial uses. And a certain amount of water must constantly flow out of the two dams so they can produce power for millions of households and businesses. Mexico and Native American tribes also have water-use rights and have a say in the management.
Although it's at the end of the river, California legally has the right to use more water than any of the other states, primarily to grow alfalfa to feed cattle. And although he has not endorsed this specific plan, California Gov. Gavin Newsom in a Feb. 11 letter to fellow Colorado River governors suggested that desalination and other "advanced technologies" may ultimately be necessary. Newsom's office did not respond to a request for comment specifically on the BlueRibbon plan.
"We welcome shared investments in infrastructure, from water reuse to desalination, that can reduce pressure on precious water supplies in Lake Powell and Lake Mead," Newsom wrote. "Our reality is clear. We need to manage with less rain and snow to provide water for our communities and farms each year. It is a shared reality that requires a shared solution."
Advertisement
Burr said the plants could generate 7 million acre-feet of water. An acre foot of water, which is 325,851 gallons, is equivalent to about what two or three U.S. homes use annually. In comparison, growing a single acre of alfalfa consumes as much as 6 acre-feet of water each year, according to University of Arizona's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
What's in the $40 billion plan?
The BlueRibbon plan envisions:
Eight large desalination plants off the coast of California and Mexico, powered potentially by small nuclear generators of the kind championed by the White House. Electricity could also come from solar or wind farms, although President Donald Trump has repeatedly tried to kill such projects. Building the plants would cost about $40 billion, Burr estimated.
The plants would potentially be built in the Sea of Cortez and in federal enclaves on California's Pacific coast. Doing so would limit environmental roadblocks, speeding their construction. Desalination plants work by removing salt from ocean water, creating extra-salty water that would have to be diluted before being dumped back into the ocean, otherwise it might be toxic to aquatic life.
Fresh water would be pumped at least 100 miles inland to reach California's Imperial Valley, a vast desert that today is irrigated with Colorado River water to grow crops from alfalfa to lettuce and onions. The "new" water would allow California to give up some of its Colorado River allocations to other states to use.
Burr said he believes the plan, which could be privately or publicly funded, is being offered at the right time. He said the pendulum against over-regulation and environmentalism is swinging back in favor of ordinary Americans and business owners, and against the environmental groups that would otherwise have prevented the construction of Lake Powell or Lake Mead.
The BlueRibbon group's supporters include companies that would benefit from increased water levels in Lake Powell, and that have fought to maintain higher water levels.
"I think you're seeing that we're realizing as a country we have to be building real infrastructure and not just jobs programs for environmental lawyers," Burr said. "We need a new real water system."
Throwing seawater at the problem: 'That's just crazy,' one expert warns
Aaron Weiss, the deputy director of the Denver-based Center for Western Priorities, considers the BlueRibbon plan laughable. The center advocates for increased land and water conservation across the West, but is nonpartisan.
Weiss said the infrastructure necessary to move fresh water from the coast back uphill for farmers would bestaggeringly expensive, likely adding tens of billons of dollars to the overall cost.
"Their solution to the problem is throw seawater at it. And that's just crazy," Weiss said. "No one has ever considered desalinating water on this scale. It's not audacious. It's just stupid. Just based on what we know that it costs to desalinate water and move water, there's no way $40 billion is anywhere close to the actual price tag."
Among other countries, Israel depends heavily on desalination to meet its drinking and farm water needs. But that also consumes about 5% of thecountry's overall electricity, according to a study by Tel Aviv University.
Weiss said there's also significant uncertainty on how the desalination plants would handle the extra-salty water created by the process. Israel's plantsmix that water back into the Mediterranean, where it's diluted enough to not endanger aquatic life.
Like Burr, Weiss said the low snowpack levels across the West this winter are putting pressure on states to find some kind of solution. During the Biden presidency, the federal government paid farmers billions of dollars to stop growing crops like alfalfa, freeing up water for other uses. That funding was temporary, however, and the Trump administration has been pushing states to find a longer-term solution.
Federal forecasters are warning this could be one of the worst years on record for Lake Powell water levels, due to the poor snowpack and warm winter. As of mid-March, the lake's surface stood at 3,529 feet above sea level, down from 3,587 feet in 2024, its most recent high. Some forecasters worry the lake could lose so much water this year that it will reach what's known as "power pool," the minimum level necessary to continue generating hydroelectricity.
The lake reached its highest-ever level of 3,708 feet above sea level in 1983, and has never been full since. A white "bathtub ring" remains visible from that high-water mark.
Forcing farmers to use less water could raise food costs for Americans, although some environmental groups say the solution is to grow less alfalfa, which is often sold to China, Japan and Saudia Arabia for their herds, according to the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources service. Burr said it's silly to pay farmers not to grow crops - wouldn't that money be better spent creating more water to use? he asked.
Weiss, however, said conservation is the fastest, easiest way to reduce water use. He said the BlueRibbon plan would take decades to complete ‒ and the Colorado River is in crisis now.
"At the end of the day, basic physics takes over," Weiss said. "Our only solution is to conserve our way out of this aggressively."
Balken, who runs the Glen Canyon Institute, has been pushing a plan to completely remove the 710-foot-tall Glen Canyon dam, or at least modify it so all the water in Lake Powell can flow downstream into Lake Mead. The institute ultimately wants to see the Colorado River returned to its natural state through the Glen Canyon.
"Given the low snowpack and given the heatwave that's about to zap the snowpack, we're probably looking at one of the worst runoffs in history, at one of the worst times. It's almost certain we will see some sort of crash soon at Lake Powell," Balken said. "This may be unprecedented, but it is the most predictable disaster of all time. We have known this moment has been coming for 20 years."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Colorado River water crisis and a $40B plan to solve it
