Lake Powell Glen Canyon Dam water release delayed attributable to drought

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

Rj Sangosti| Medianews Group | The Denver Put up through Getty Photographs

The federal government on Tuesday announced it'll delay the release of water from one of the Colorado River's major reservoirs, an unprecedented action that may quickly handle declining reservoir levels fueled by the historic Western drought.

The decision will maintain extra water in Lake Powell, the reservoir situated on the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona, as an alternative of releasing it downstream to Lake Mead, the river's other primary reservoir.

The actions come as water levels at both reservoirs reached their lowest levels on report. Lake Powell's water level is currently at an elevation of three,523 ft. If the level drops under 3,490 ft, the so-called minimum power pool, the Glen Canyon Dam, which provides electricity for about 5.8 million prospects within the inland West, will no longer have the ability to generate electricity.

The delay is expected to protect operations at the dam for next 12 months, officials stated during a press briefing on Tuesday, and can maintain practically 500,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. Beneath a separate plan, officers may also release about 500,000 acre-feet of water into Lake Powell from Flaming Gorge, a reservoir situated upstream on the Utah-Wyoming border.

Officers stated the actions will help save water, shield the dam's means to produce hydropower and supply officers with more time to figure out the right way to operate the dam at decrease water ranges.

"Now we have never taken this step earlier than in the Colorado Basin," assistant Inside Department secretary Tanya Trujillo advised 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 final yr ordered the first-ever water cuts for the Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to greater than 40 million people and a few 2.5 million acres of croplands within the West. The cuts have largely affected farmers in Arizona, who use practically three-quarters of the obtainable water provide to irrigate their crops.

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

Later that month, representatives from the states despatched a letter to the Inside agreeing with the proposal and requesting that non permanent reductions in releases from Lake Powell be implemented with out triggering additional water cuts in any of the states.

The megadrought within the western U.S. has fueled the driest twenty years in the region in at the least 1,200 years, with conditions prone to proceed by way of 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 altering, our actions are accountable for that, and we now have to take accountable action to reply," Trujillo mentioned. "We all have to work collectively to protect the assets now we have and the declining water provides in the Colorado River that our communities depend on."