Comment A third set of human remains was recovered from Lake Mead on Monday, thanks to a drought that has pushed water levels in the largest reservoir in the United States to an all-time low. National Park Service rangers responded to a report of discovered human remains around 4:30 p.m. at Swim Beach in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, the agency said in a news release. The Clark County, Nev. Coroner’s Office. is expected to determine the cause of death, according to the Park Service. No details have been released about the victim’s identity or when the person may have died. “Guards are on the scene and have set up a perimeter to recover the remains,” the agency said. It is at least the third time human remains have been recovered from Lake Mead in recent months, following two discoveries less than a week apart in May. Water levels in Lake Mead are the lowest they’ve been since the reservoir near Las Vegas first filled in April 1937 as Hoover Dam, then called Boulder Dam, tapped the Colorado River, according to NASA. Satellite images released by NASA last week show how the reservoir on the Nevada-Arizona border, which is now 27 percent full, is almost unrecognizable compared to how it looked two decades ago. The reservoir is at peak capacity when the water level reaches 1,229 feet above sea level, but is considered full at 1,219.6 feet, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The reservoir last hit that peak capacity in 1999, according to NASA. As of Tuesday, Lake Mead was about 1,040 feet above sea level. In the west, hot and dry summer weather has sparked drought and wildfires in all parts of the region. The effects of climate change were evident last week as a stretch of the Rio Grande near Albuquerque that supplies farmers with water and habitat for a range of aquatic animals dried up. “In the last 1,200 years, we haven’t seen a period as dry as we are right now,” Ann Willis, a researcher at the Watershed Science Center at the University of California, Davis, told the Washington Post last month. “We’re really hitting new lows in terms of how extreme the conditions are.” These maps depict the severity of the western drought The drought has affected the fifth most visited park in the country in more ways than one. The lake supplies electricity to 350,000 homes and is also an important source of irrigation and drinking water for about 25 million people across the southwest. ‘Where There’s Bodies, There’s Treasure’: A Hunt As Lake Mead Shrinks While Lake Mead National Recreation Area advertises on its website how it “offers Joshua trees, canyons and night skies lit by the Milky Way,” the park has also had to deal with challenges such as previously sunken boats now exposed in the low water. But multiple discoveries of human remains in the park have made headlines in recent months. On May 1, the remains of a person who died about 40 years ago were discovered in a corroding barrel. Lt. Ray Spencer of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said at the time that investigators believe the person was a homicide victim who died of a gunshot wound. Authorities believe the person was killed in the late 1970s or early 1980s, based on clothing and footwear found with the body, according to a statement provided to The Post in May. The receding waters of Lake Mead reveal a body. Police expect to find more. Spencer told CBS affiliate KLAS-TV in May that there would likely be more such discoveries. “There is a very good chance that as the water level drops we will find additional human remains,” he said. #BREAKING: Body found in a barrel in Lake Mead may have been underwater for four decades, and more bodies likely to surface as lake recedes due to severe drought, Las Vegas Metro Police tell @8NewsNow I -Team. #8NN — David Charns (@davidcharns) May 2, 2022 Spencer was right. Six days later, human skeletal remains were discovered in Callville Bay in the park, according to the Park Service. Authorities have not released further details on the identities of the victims.
