Lake Powell Glen Canyon Dam water launch delayed due to drought

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

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

The federal government on Tuesday announced it will delay the discharge of water from one of the Colorado River's major reservoirs, an unprecedented motion that will briefly handle declining reservoir levels fueled by the historic Western drought.

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

The actions come as water ranges at both reservoirs reached their lowest ranges on record. Lake Powell's water stage is currently at an elevation of 3,523 toes. If the level drops beneath 3,490 feet, the so-called minimal energy pool, the Glen Canyon Dam, which supplies electrical energy for about 5.8 million clients within the inland West, will now not have the ability to generate electrical energy.

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

Officers stated the actions will assist save water, protect the dam's means to produce hydropower and provide officers with extra time to figure out how one can operate the dam at lower water ranges.

"We've by no means taken this step before within the Colorado Basin," assistant Inside Department secretary Tanya Trujillo instructed reporters on Tuesday. "However the situations we see at the moment, and what we see on the horizon, demand that we take immediate motion."

Federal officials 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 in the West. The cuts have principally affected farmers in Arizona, who use practically 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 federal government was considering taking emergency motion 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 short-term reductions in releases from Lake Powell be implemented with out triggering further water cuts in any of the states.

The megadrought in the western U.S. has fueled the driest two decades within the region in at 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 climate is changing, our actions are responsible for that, and we've got to take accountable motion to reply," Trujillo said. "We all have to work collectively to guard the sources we now have and the declining water supplies within the Colorado River that our communities depend on."