Check out this photo tour of the "Monolith of Lake Mead," which is a formerly sunken speedboat that is now sticking straight up out of the dry lakebed along the shoreline of Lake Mead, near Boulder City, Nevada. According to KKTV, Lake Mead water levels are lower than they have ever been since the lake was filled over 80 years ago.
The Associated Press paints this dire image:
An abandoned old power boat juts upright from the cracked mud like a giant tombstone. Its epitaph might read: Here lay the waters of Lake Mead.
The largest U.S. reservoir has shrunken to a record low amid a punishing drought and the demands of 40 million people in seven states who are sucking the Colorado River dry. The megadrought in the U.S. West has been worsened by climate change. Wildfire season has become longer and blazes more intense, scorching temperatures have broken records and lakes are shriveling.
8 News Now has a great photo essay featuring photos of the cove where the boat is sticking out of the ground, objects that surfaced around the boat when the waters receded, many of which were probably onboard the boat when it sank, and the boat itself. They explain:
Since May when 8 News Now first reported on the boat poking through the water, people have been making a pilgrimage of sorts to the site, taking photos, just sitting and looking, and even posing as mermaids near the boat.
But many people have not visited, or are not able to visit, so 8 News Now is showing an up-close and personal tour of the cove and the boat.
Go check out the photo essay, it's a haunting reminder of what most of the world might look like soon, if we can't figure out how to change our water use habits, and how to arrest and reverse climate change. It's definitely sobering.
