3rd set of human remains discovered at Lake Mead
It’s the third such unsettling discovery made at the lake in as many months as reservoirs continue to buckle under persistent drought conditions.
Another body has surfaced at Lake Mead, this time in a swimming area where water levels have dropped from drought and climate change.
Human remains were found at Lake Mead National Recreational Area Monday, the third such discovery since May, as water levels continue to drop, according to authorities.
National Park Service rangers received a witness report of human remains at Swim Beach on the Nevada side of the reservoir around 4:30 p.m., local time, Monday, the NPS said in a statement. Park rangers have since arrived on the scene and set a perimeter to recover the remains.
A bathtub ring of light minerals shows the high water line of Lake Mead near water intakes on the Arizona side of Hoover Dam at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area Sunday, June 26, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
The Clark County Medical Examiner was also contacted to determine the cause of death, and an investigation is underway. No other details on the remains were available at the time the NPS issued its statement Monday.
After the first set of human remains was found at the beginning of May, water levels had fallen to 1,054 feet, and officials had warned that they would likely find more human remains as the water level fell further.
“I would say there is a very good chance as the water level drops that we are going to find additional human remains,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Homicide Lieutenant Ray Spencer told KLAS-TV back in May following the first discovery.
A sign marks the water line from 2002 near Lake Mead at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Saturday, July 9, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev. 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. (AP Photo/John Locher)
The first body had been found in a barrel and was likely a murder victim who died from a gunshot wound sometime in the mid-1970s to early 1980s, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police.
The second set of human remains was found roughly a week later when two sisters from the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson had been paddleboarding in the Callville Bay area of Lake Mead on May 7.
By July 25, the day the third set of remains was found, water levels at Lake Mead had dropped by nearly 15 feet to 1,040.8 feet. It's unclear if the most recent discovery was directly tied to the falling lake levels, but it comes amid the Southwest's driest two decades in more than a thousand years as parched reservoirs shrink.
A formerly sunken boat stands upright into the air with its stern buried in the mud along the shoreline of Lake Mead at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Wednesday, June 22, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev. (AP Photo/John Locher)
“Declining water levels due to climate change and 20 years of ongoing drought have reshaped the park’s shorelines,” the NPS said in an alert on July 22. “As Lake Mead continues to recede, extending launch ramps becomes more difficult and more expensive due to the topography and projected decline in water levels.”
At the beginning of July, a previously sunken World War II-era boat identified as a Higgins landing craft had surfaced near Lake Mead Marina and Hemenway Harbor. While over 1,000 of these crafts were deployed at the Battle of Normandy on June 6, 1944, or D-Day, this boat had once been used to survey the Colorado River, according to The Associated Press.
In late April, one of Lake Mead's water intake valves was left exposed by the depleted water levels.
If the water levels fall below 895 feet, a point too low to reach the lowest water outlet at Hoover Dam to flow downstream, the reservoir will become a dead pool.
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