'This is terrifying': The Colorado River, a lifeline for seven states, is drying up at its sourceGRANBY, Colo. — High in the Rocky Mountains, ...

'This is terrifying': The Colorado River, a lifeline for seven states, is drying up at its source
GRANBY, Colo. — High in the Rocky Mountains, spring-fed streams and ponds have vanished, leaving patches of cracked mud in what were once spongy meadows.

This year has been so extremely warm and arid that the mountains have remained largely snowless. The water-generating source of the Colorado River, its headwaters, is drying up.

“I grew up here and have never seen the creeks and the springs dried up like they have this year,” said Merrit Linke, a fourth-generation rancher and county commissioner. “There’s just not any water.”

Linke drove his pickup through pastures searching for the few remaining water holes where he could lead cattle to drink.

“No one has ever seen it like this,” he said, “not this dry, not this warm, not this low a snowpack.”

A border collie walks across a parched reservoir
Rancher Merrit Linke’s border collie, Z, pads across a parched reservoir that is normally full of water near Granby, Colo.
The desiccation of the river’s headwaters is shrinking a critical water lifeline for about 35 million people and 5 million acres of farmland across the Southwest, from the Rockies to Southern California and northern Mexico.

With less snowmelt feeding the Colorado River, its giant reservoirs are dropping to dangerously low levels. Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir near Las Vegas, is now 28% full.

Lake Powell, the second-largest reservoir, is at just 24%, approaching a point where there won’t be enough water behind Glen Canyon Dam to continue generating electricity. To keep hydropower going as long as possible, the Trump administration is taking emergency measures, releasing extra water from another reservoir upstream to raise the lake level.

Experts and state water managers say it’s clear the seven states that rely on the river need to drastically cut water use to avert disaster before the supply in reservoirs is exhausted.



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A substantial portion of the cutbacks will likely fall to California, which uses more from the river than any other state — nearly one-fourth of the water that flows from taps in Southern California cities, and all of the water that irrigates farms in the Imperial Valley.

About three-fourths of the water that’s taken out of the Colorado River is used for agriculture, producing alfalfa, corn, lettuce, broccoli and other crops.

In Colorado, farmers and ranchers are struggling with the immediate consequences. They’re leaving many fields and pastures dry, selling off cows, and bracing for tough economic times.

Some who raise cattle here say they doubt global warming is fueling the crisis, but scientific research shows rising temperatures have intensified the severe dryness over the last quarter-century. And this year, the river flow is collapsing to one of its lowest points on record.

“We definitely feel like we’re on the front lines of climate change,” said Becky Mitchell, the state of Colorado’s river commissioner. “This year is a perfect example.”
SOURCE: https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2026-06-25/drying-colorado-river