Lake Powell Glen Canyon Dam water release delayed resulting from drought

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

Rj Sangosti| Medianews Group | The Denver Post via Getty Images

The federal authorities on Tuesday introduced it is going to delay the release of water from one of the Colorado River's main reservoirs, an unprecedented motion that may briefly tackle declining reservoir ranges fueled by the historic Western drought.

The decision will keep extra 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 other primary reservoir.

The actions come as water ranges at both reservoirs reached their lowest ranges on document. Lake Powell's water level is at the moment at an elevation of 3,523 toes. If the level drops beneath 3,490 ft, the so-called minimum power pool, the Glen Canyon Dam, which supplies electricity for about 5.8 million clients within the inland West, will now not be able to generate electricity.

The delay is expected to guard operations on the dam for next 12 months, officials mentioned during a press briefing on Tuesday, and will hold practically 500,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. Below a separate plan, officials may also release about 500,000 acre-feet of water into Lake Powell from Flaming Gorge, a reservoir located upstream on the Utah-Wyoming border.

Officers stated the actions will assist save water, shield the dam's capability to provide hydropower and provide officers with extra time to figure out easy methods to operate the dam at lower water levels.

"We've got never taken this step earlier than in the Colorado Basin," assistant Interior Division secretary Tanya Trujillo told reporters on Tuesday. "However the situations we see today, and what we see on the horizon, demand that we take prompt motion."

Federal officials last year ordered the first-ever water cuts for the Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to greater than 40 million folks and a few 2.5 million acres of croplands in the West. The cuts have principally affected farmers in Arizona, who use nearly three-quarters of the available water supply 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 action to handle declining water ranges at Lake Powell.

Later that month, representatives from the states sent a letter to the Interior agreeing with the proposal and requesting that temporary reductions in releases from Lake Powell be implemented without triggering additional water cuts in any of the states.

The megadrought within the western U.S. has fueled the driest twenty years in the area in no less than 1,200 years, with conditions prone to proceed through 2022 and persist for years. Researchers have estimated that 42% of the drought's severity is attributable to human-caused climate change.

"Our local weather is altering, our actions are responsible for that, and we've got to take responsible motion to reply," Trujillo stated. "We all need to work collectively to guard the resources we have and the declining water supplies in the Colorado River that our communities rely on."