SPRING VALLEY, Calif. -- The water crisis is coming to a boil across the southwest.

Locally, most of our water districts are already asking us to conserve.

But 10News reporter Joe Little shows us why we may need more than conservation to survive this drought.

This is a pretty impressive walk on top of the Sweetwater Dam.

Unfortunately, the view of the Sweetwater Reservoir has looked better.

This is the drinking water for more than 180-thousand South Bay residents.

And, it's sad to say, the cup is more than half-empty.

“You can kind of see that brush-line there. That brown line on the rocks there? That's where we were last year,” said Scott McClelland, a reservoir spokesman.

If last year was bad, this year is worse. In the best years, water touches the red line near the top of the dam.

It hasn't touched that line in more than a decade.

“So, you can see, we're down a lot of feet from where we would not only normally be, but also at full reservoir level,” McClelland said.

“Sweetwater Reservoir, right here, you can see, is down to 23-percent,” said Don Thompson of the Reservoir Authority.

23-percent. That's bad. Really bad. Take a look at the intake tower.

See that big cup coming out of the side?

That's a water intake. Engineers draw water from the intake closest to the surface.

This is what the reservoir looked like a decade ago: full and overflowing.

“We are right now down at the last usable cup level on this intake tower,” McClelland said.

So, what does this mean for you? Well, if things continue to get worse and these reservoirs continue to run low, you could be fined for using too much water, and your food prices may rise as water for crops evaporates.

“Agriculture's going to be severely restricted. Residential will be severely restricted. It's going to hurt everybody,” Thompson said.

We get our water from three locations: Northern California, the Colorado River, and locally.

All three are drying up.

Sweetwater engineers call this a "perfect storm of droughts."

They say we'll need another “El Nino,” or at least ten straight years of above-average rainfall, just to hit those red lines once again.

Only then will the view from the dam be as impressive as the walk on top.