Lake Powell Glen Canyon Dam water launch delayed because of 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 Pictures

The federal government on Tuesday introduced it's going to delay the discharge of water from one of many Colorado River's major reservoirs, an unprecedented motion that can temporarily tackle declining reservoir levels fueled by the historic Western drought.

The choice will keep 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 other major reservoir.

The actions come as water ranges at each reservoirs reached their lowest ranges on document. Lake Powell's water degree is presently at an elevation of three,523 toes. If the extent drops beneath 3,490 toes, the so-called minimum power pool, the Glen Canyon Dam, which supplies electricity for about 5.8 million customers in the inland West, will now not have the ability to generate electrical energy.

The delay is expected to guard operations on the dam for subsequent 12 months, officers mentioned throughout a press briefing on Tuesday, and can keep practically 500,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. Below a separate plan, officers may even release about 500,000 acre-feet of water into Lake Powell from Flaming Gorge, a reservoir situated upstream on the Utah-Wyoming border.

Officials mentioned the actions will help save water, defend the dam's capacity to provide hydropower and provide officers with more time to figure out the right way to operate the dam at decrease water ranges.

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

Federal officials last 12 months 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 mostly affected farmers in Arizona, who use nearly three-quarters of the out there 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 considering taking emergency motion to handle 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 implemented without triggering additional water cuts in any of the states.

The megadrought within the western U.S. has fueled the driest 20 years within the area in at least 1,200 years, with situations prone to continue 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 changing, our actions are responsible for that, and we now have to take accountable motion to reply," Trujillo mentioned. "We all have to work collectively to guard the sources we have and the declining water supplies within the Colorado River that our communities rely on."