Long-term infrastructure planning is a concept that the US government and business world has fundamentally failed to embrace. The 'dead pool' fate of Glen Canyon's hydroelctric power generation system has been known for a decade or more. For example, see this from 2010:
> "Many scientists predict that within two decades, rising demand for Colorado River water and falling supply will drop the surface of the reservoir to its lowest level, known as “dead pool.” Because the lowest exit from the dam (the river outlet works) is 237 feet above the original riverbed, at dead pool Lake Powell will still hold 2 million acre-feet of water, one-thirteenth of capacity... With demand rising and supply falling, Lake Powell could reach dead pool in the 2020s. Impossible? Hardly. Between 1999 and 2005, the reservoir lost two-thirds of its volume and neared the elevation of its generator intakes, 333 feet above the riverbed. Another two or three years at the same rate of decline and Lake Powell would already be at dead pool."
There could have been a coordinated effort to install photovoltaic power across the Southwest to fill the expected power generation gap - the region is pretty ideal for solar power - but that would have meant a steep drop in profits for the regional coal- and natural gas-based power producers (whose activities are driving the temperature rise, resulting in less runoff reaching the Colorado River, and so on).
In this video [1] they document that the recent monsoons brought Lake Mead up 4' from the last time they visited the link (check out their feed). But, 4' is still a drop in the bucket, as witnessed from that video when they pan to the rest of the lake. Monsoons are weak and can be unreliable around here (south west, especially California. They do cause mudslides and even find leaky roofs in casinos, but that's not enough to change things.
https://orionmagazine.org/article/calamity-on-the-colorado/
> "Many scientists predict that within two decades, rising demand for Colorado River water and falling supply will drop the surface of the reservoir to its lowest level, known as “dead pool.” Because the lowest exit from the dam (the river outlet works) is 237 feet above the original riverbed, at dead pool Lake Powell will still hold 2 million acre-feet of water, one-thirteenth of capacity... With demand rising and supply falling, Lake Powell could reach dead pool in the 2020s. Impossible? Hardly. Between 1999 and 2005, the reservoir lost two-thirds of its volume and neared the elevation of its generator intakes, 333 feet above the riverbed. Another two or three years at the same rate of decline and Lake Powell would already be at dead pool."
There could have been a coordinated effort to install photovoltaic power across the Southwest to fill the expected power generation gap - the region is pretty ideal for solar power - but that would have meant a steep drop in profits for the regional coal- and natural gas-based power producers (whose activities are driving the temperature rise, resulting in less runoff reaching the Colorado River, and so on).