![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782406522_7_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nGRANBY, Colo.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0High in the Rocky Mountains, spring-fed streams and ponds have vanished, leaving patches of cracked mud in what were once spongy meadows. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up here and have never seen the creeks and the springs dried up like they have this year,\u201d said Merrit Linke, a fourth-generation rancher and county commissioner. \u201cThere\u2019s just not any water.\u201d<\/p>\n
Linke drove his pickup through pastures searching for the few remaining water holes where he could lead cattle to drink.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one has ever seen it like this,\u201d he said, \u201cnot this dry, not this warm, not this low a snowpack.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rancher Merrit Linke\u2019s border collie, Z, pads across a parched reservoir that is normally full of water near Granby, Colo.<\/p>\n
The desiccation of the river\u2019s headwaters is shrinking a critical water lifeline for about 35 million people<\/a> and 5 million acres of farmland across the Southwest, from the Rockies to Southern California and northern Mexico.<\/p>\n With less snowmelt feeding the Colorado River, its giant reservoirs are dropping to dangerously low levels<\/a>. Lake Mead, the country\u2019s largest reservoir near Las Vegas, is now 28% full.<\/p>\n Lake Powell, the second-largest reservoir, is at just 24%, approaching a point where there won\u2019t be enough water behind Glen Canyon Dam to continue generating electricity<\/a>. To keep hydropower going as long as possible, the Trump administration is taking emergency measures<\/a>, releasing extra water from another reservoir upstream to raise the lake level.<\/p>\n Experts and state water managers say it\u2019s clear the seven states that rely on the river need to drastically cut water use<\/a> to avert disaster before the supply in reservoirs is exhausted. <\/p>\n