The Southwest just had it's driest year on record. And for Lake Powell, and anyone who lives in the region, that spells catastrophe for the a reservoir that is being propped up by pulling resources we don't have. I spoke with Eric Balken of the Glen Canyon Institute again to hear what's happening, and why 2026 is the year everything changes for Lake Powell.

A catastrophic design flaw at the heart of the American West is about to be triggered. Glen Canyon Dam, the concrete titan holding back the nation's second-largest reservoir, Lake Powell, is failing. Not from an attack, not from an earthquake, but from a fundamental vulnerability in its own plumbing that a century of drought has finally exposed. As Lake Powell hits a historic low of just 22% capacity, it is now just feet away from dropping below its "minimum power pool" of 3,490 feet. At that point, the dam’s massive hydropower turbines will go silent for the first time in history.

But the loss of power isn't the real disaster. The true crisis lies 120 feet deeper, at dead pool. A quiet 2024 government memo from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation admitted a terrifying secret: the dam's emergency bypass tubes—the only way to send water downstream to Lake Mead and 40 million Americans once the power is off—are damaged and unreliable. The same physics phenomenon, cavitation, that nearly destroyed the dam during a record flood in 1983 is now eating the pipes from the inside out during a record drought.

This documentary explores the chain of events leading to this precipice, from the mathematically flawed 1922 Colorado River Compact that promised water that never existed, to the desperate, last-ditch efforts now underway, including draining other reservoirs to keep Powell alive. We investigate the "kill switch" flaw that could turn Glen Canyon Dam into a massive wall, cutting off the Colorado River from Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. With runoff from snowpack at just 22% of average, the West is no longer planning for a worst-case scenario. It is living in one. And the structure built to secure its future may be the very thing that guarantees its collapse.