Lake Powell Glen Canyon Dam water launch delayed due to drought

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

Rj Sangosti| Medianews Group | The Denver Submit via Getty Pictures

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

The choice will keep extra water in Lake Powell, the reservoir located 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 levels at each reservoirs reached their lowest ranges on document. Lake Powell's water level is at the moment at an elevation of three,523 feet. If the extent drops under 3,490 ft, the so-called minimal power pool, the Glen Canyon Dam, which supplies electricity for about 5.8 million customers within the inland West, will not be capable of generate electrical energy.

The delay is predicted to guard operations on the dam for next 12 months, officers mentioned during a press briefing on Tuesday, and can preserve almost 500,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. Below a separate plan, officers will even 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, protect the dam's capability to provide hydropower and supply officers with extra time to determine methods to operate the dam at decrease water levels.

"We've got never taken this step earlier than within the Colorado Basin," assistant Inside Department secretary Tanya Trujillo advised reporters on Tuesday. "But the situations we see as we speak, and what we see on the horizon, demand that we take immediate action."

Federal officials final yr ordered the first-ever water cuts for the Colorado River Basin, which provides water to greater than 40 million people and some 2.5 million acres of croplands in the West. The cuts have mostly affected farmers in Arizona, who use almost 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 non permanent reductions in releases from Lake Powell be carried out without triggering further water cuts in any of the states.

The megadrought in the western U.S. has fueled the driest twenty years within the region in not less than 1,200 years, with conditions more likely to proceed by 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 now we have to take accountable motion to reply," Trujillo mentioned. "All of us need to work collectively to protect the sources we've got and the declining water provides within the Colorado River that our communities depend on."