Lake Powell Glen Canyon Dam water release delayed due to drought

Water ranges are at a historic low at Lake Powell on April 5, 2022 in Page, Arizona.

Rj Sangosti| Medianews Group | The Denver Publish via Getty Photos

The federal authorities on Tuesday announced it'll delay the discharge of water from one of many Colorado River's major reservoirs, an unprecedented motion that will temporarily deal with declining reservoir levels fueled by the historic Western drought.

The choice will hold more water in Lake Powell, the reservoir positioned at the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona, as a substitute of releasing it downstream to Lake Mead, the river's different main reservoir.

The actions come as water ranges at both reservoirs reached their lowest ranges on report. Lake Powell's water stage is at present at an elevation of 3,523 toes. If the extent drops beneath 3,490 toes, the so-called minimum energy pool, the Glen Canyon Dam, which provides electricity for about 5.8 million clients within the inland West, will no longer be able to generate electrical energy.

The delay is expected to protect operations at the dam for next 12 months, officials stated during a press briefing on Tuesday, and will preserve practically 500,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. Under a separate plan, officers will even launch about 500,000 acre-feet of water into Lake Powell from Flaming Gorge, a reservoir located upstream on the Utah-Wyoming border.

Officials stated the actions will assist save water, shield the dam's capacity to supply hydropower and supply officials with extra time to figure out how to operate the dam at decrease water ranges.

"We have now never taken this step earlier than in the Colorado Basin," assistant Interior Division secretary Tanya Trujillo informed reporters on Tuesday. "However the conditions we see in the present day, and what we see on the horizon, demand that we take prompt motion."

Federal officers last year ordered the first-ever water cuts for the Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to more than 40 million people and a few 2.5 million acres of croplands in the West. The cuts have largely affected farmers in Arizona, who use almost three-quarters of the accessible water provide to irrigate their crops.

In April, federal water managers warned the seven states that draw from the Colorado River that the government was contemplating taking emergency motion to address declining water ranges at Lake Powell.

Later that month, representatives from the states despatched a letter to the Interior agreeing with the proposal and requesting that non permanent reductions in releases from Lake Powell be applied without triggering further water cuts in any of the states.

The megadrought in the western U.S. has fueled the driest twenty years in the region in at the least 1,200 years, with situations likely to proceed by 2022 and persist for years. Researchers have estimated that 42% of the drought's severity is attributable to human-caused local weather change.

"Our local weather is changing, our actions are answerable for that, and we have to take accountable motion to respond," Trujillo mentioned. "We all must work collectively to guard the resources we have and the declining water supplies in the Colorado River that our communities rely on."