Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which supply water to about 40 million Americans in seven states, have reached their lowest combined storage levels on record at approximately 12.7 million acre-feet, driven by long-term drought, low snowpack runoff, and high demand on the Colorado River, and the states affected by the shrinking reservoirs can't agree on how to share the water supply, CBS News reported.
Downstream states California, Arizona, and Nevada offered to make substantial cuts to water use, while upstream states Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico have gone in the opposite direction.
"In the last year alone, they've increased their use over the same period and say they can't afford cuts. This is really about political will," Kelly Shannon McNeill, the managing director of LA Waterkeeper, an organization that serves as a water watchdog, told CBS News.
The Trump administration is readying to impose cuts of about 1 trillion gallons of water a year for the next two years for California, Arizona, and Nevada.
Federal officials seem to be "trying to put some structure in place that pushes the states to try again, maybe with a slightly different playing field, to see if the states can come to some sort of agreement," Jennifer Pitt, director of the National Audubon Society's Colorado River program, told the Los Angeles Times.
As of Thursday, Lake Powell was at a record low of 3,523 feet, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Lake Mead was at 1,041.81 feet and 27% full, according to the Bureau of Reclamation's latest weekly reservoir report.
The combined storage in both is at its lowest level since 1957, when construction of Glen Canyon Dam was underway, and Lake Powell did not yet exist.
It's "a milestone in the history of water storage in the Colorado River Basin," said Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University and an author on the analysis.
The record reveals "the seriousness of the uniquely small amount of water that is presently stored in the basin's reservoirs," he added.