Lake Powell Glen Canyon Dam water release delayed on account of drought

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

Rj Sangosti| Medianews Group | The Denver Post by way of Getty Photos

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

The decision will maintain more water in Lake Powell, the reservoir situated at the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona, as a substitute of releasing it downstream to Lake Mead, the river's other main reservoir.

The actions come as water levels at both reservoirs reached their lowest ranges on file. Lake Powell's water stage is presently at an elevation of 3,523 feet. If the level drops beneath 3,490 feet, the so-called minimum energy 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 subsequent 12 months, officers mentioned throughout a press briefing on Tuesday, and can maintain nearly 500,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. Beneath a separate plan, officers may also launch about 500,000 acre-feet of water into Lake Powell from Flaming Gorge, a reservoir positioned upstream on the Utah-Wyoming border.

Officers stated the actions will help save water, protect the dam's means to provide hydropower and provide officers with more time to determine how one can function the dam at decrease water levels.

"We have now by no means taken this step before within the Colorado Basin," assistant Inside Division secretary Tanya Trujillo told reporters on Tuesday. "However the conditions we see at the moment, and what we see on the horizon, demand that we take prompt motion."

Federal officers final year ordered the first-ever water cuts for the Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to greater than 40 million people and some 2.5 million acres of croplands within the West. The cuts have largely affected farmers in Arizona, who use practically three-quarters of the available 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 action to deal with declining water levels at Lake Powell.

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

The megadrought in the western U.S. has fueled the driest twenty years within the area in at the very least 1,200 years, with conditions likely to proceed through 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 chargeable for that, and we have to take accountable motion to reply," Trujillo said. "We all must work together to protect the resources we've got and the declining water supplies within the Colorado River that our communities rely on."