Diminishing water supply from the Colorado River has the federal government on the brink of its first ever water shortage declaration.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation projects Colorado's Lake Mead to fall to historically low levels this summer.
This is according to a recent article in the Washington Post.
So… just how vital are those bodies of water?
Denver7 took a tour of the Rocky Mountain region a few years back – to take a deep dive into the “lifeline of the west.”