After the Flood: A Photo Tour of Reservoirs in a Time of Drought

Where I lived in Colorado in the very early '00s, dust storms were common in the warm dry months, painting the western sky over with a thin layer of swirly tan. The storms were born on the suddenly immense beaches surrounding Blue Mesa Reservoir just down the highway. The largest body of water in the state, Blue Mesa stretches for over 20 miles, inundating the upper reaches of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and the town of Cimmaron, which now exists as a cobble of ramshackle homes on a hill overlooking the water and growing beach.

The beaches around the reservoir grew in accordance with the first wave (2001 - 2003 ) of what can reasonably be considered an ongoing and devestating Western drought. By the time I moved away in 2003, Blue Mesa was a sad plain of loose dirt with a strip of blue glass running down the middle. The high desert was beginning to reclaim itself. Today the reservoir remains at just under half-full and most of the state itself is currently classified within the range of "abnormally dry" to "exeptional drought" by the US Drought Monitor, like most of the American southwest.

Reservoirs have an interesting way of commenting on the current H20 state of affairs in dry parts of the world. They're an extreme disruptive force in landscapes and ecosystems that don't really get the credit for that that they deserve, until periods when water turns scarce and the scars left by millions of tons of captured water are revealed. So, as another Western winter fails to deliver on its wet promise, let's take a tour of the desert's helpless lakes.

When this photo was taken, Arizona's Lake Mead had fallen to just under half its capacity, touching its all time 1965 low. That's about where it remains today. Last year the reservoir recieved its lowest ever water delivery from upstream, while California faces its driest year on record. Note that every year since 1998, Mead has held less and less water.

After its 1965 low, Lake Mead took 19 years to refill.

In 2003, Lake Powell reached 97 feet below normal water level. Today, it's 121 feet below. Last year, for the first time ever, the reservoir had to cut its outflow to the lower Colorado River states. This year is already looking worse, somehow.

Folsom Lake is right in the middle of the shit, so to speak. California's Central Valley is a hellscape of dryness in normal years and right now is suffering through a worst-ever drought. Last month, the dropping water levels revealed for the first time the ruins of Mormon Island, a former Gold Rush ghost town sunk by Folsom Dam in 1955. While the larger California State Water Project just announced that it will deliver zero water this year to the various agencies that depend on it, Folsom Lake and its parent, the Central Valley Project, have yet to release 2014 forecasts. You could probably make some good guesses, however.

OK, this might be cheating a little bit. Oregon's Cougar Reservoir was lowered intentionally in 2002 to allow for an overhaul of its dam's turbine-generator units. It's still a rare, brutally naked view of the total post-reservoir picture.

Between 1995 and 1998, England was hit by one of the worst droughts in its history, leading to the above conditions at Warland Reservoir and many other UK impoundments.

Abberton dates all the way back to 1939—it was used as target practice during WWII—so this muddy little bridge is fairly ancient. Current plans call for the English reservoir to be nearly doubled in size simply by raising its surrounding banks.

Edersee Dam was busted open in 1943 by RAF bombers that had been using Abberton Reservoir (above) as target practice. The damage comes courtesy of Britain's infamous "bouncing bombs," payloads designed to bounce along the surface of a body of water toward their target. The dam was rebuilt within months by workers drawn from forced labor camps.