Lake Oroville waters a quarter of US crops, sustains endangered salmon under its massive dam, and anchors tourism in Northern California, but it may soon reach record low water capacity amid a severe drought, according to state officials.
While droughts are common in California, this year's is much hotter and drier than others, evaporating water more quickly from the reservoirs and the sparse Sierra Nevada snowpack that feeds them.
The lake is a linchpin in a system of aqueducts and reservoirs in the arid West that makes California possible.
Stark photos capture the crisis in the region that experts say will only get worse in the years to come.
The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which supplies one third of the state's water when it melts in the spring and summer, has disappeared two months earlier than expected thanks to warm weather and a lack of spring snow, according to the Weather Channel.
UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain called it an 'extremely rapid melt-out with very little runoff generated.'
If Lake Oroville falls below 640 feet (195 meters) - which it could do by late August - state officials would shut down a major power plant for just the second time ever because of low water levels, straining the electrical grid during the peak demand of the hottest part of the summer.
Last month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded an emergency drought proclamation to 41 counties, covering 30 percent of the state's population.
The governor cited climate change as a contributing factor to the drought, and called on citizens to conserve water.
'With the reality of climate change abundantly clear in California, we’re taking urgent action to address acute water supply shortfalls in northern and central California while also building our water resilience to safeguard communities in the decades ahead,' Newsom said in a statement.
'We’re working with local officials and other partners to protect public health and safety and the environment, and call on all Californians to help meet this challenge by stepping up their efforts to save water,' he said.
Over Memorial Day weekend, dozens of houseboats sat on cinderblocks at Lake Oroville because there wasn't enough water to hold them.
Blackened trees lined the reservoir's steep, parched banks.
'It makes me feel like our planet is literally drying up,' she said. 'It makes me feel a little unsettled because the drier it gets, the more fires we are going to have.'
Droughts are a part of life in California, where a Mediterranean-style climate means the summers are always dry and the winters are not always wet. The state's reservoirs act as a savings account, storing water in the wet years to help the state survive during the dry ones.
Last year was the third driest year on record in terms of precipitation.
Temperatures hit triple digits in much of California over the Memorial Day weekend, earlier than expected. State officials were surprised earlier this year when about 500,000 acre feet (61,674 hectare meters) of water they were expecting to flow into reservoirs never showed up. One acre-foot is enough water to supply up to two households for one year.
'In the previous drought, it took (the reservoirs) three years to get this low as they are in the second year of this drought,' Lund said.
Lake Oroville's record low is 646 feet (197 meters), but the Department of Water Resources projects it will dip below that sometime in August or September. If that happens, the state will have to close the boat ramps for the first time ever because of low water levels, according to Aaron Wright, public safety chief for the Northern Buttes District of California State Parks.
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