Lake Powell Glen Canyon Dam water release delayed because of drought

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

Rj Sangosti| Medianews Group | The Denver Put up through Getty Photographs

The federal government on Tuesday introduced it should delay the release of water from one of the Colorado River's main reservoirs, an unprecedented action that will quickly address declining reservoir levels fueled by the historic Western drought.

The decision will preserve extra water in Lake Powell, the reservoir positioned on 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 levels on record. Lake Powell's water level is at the moment at an elevation of three,523 feet. If the level drops beneath 3,490 toes, the so-called minimal power pool, the Glen Canyon Dam, which provides electrical energy for about 5.8 million clients in the inland West, will now not have the ability to generate electricity.

The delay is predicted to protect operations on the dam for subsequent 12 months, officials said throughout a press briefing on Tuesday, and can hold almost 500,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. Under a separate plan, officers may even launch about 500,000 acre-feet of water into Lake Powell from Flaming Gorge, a reservoir positioned upstream on the Utah-Wyoming border.

Officers mentioned the actions will assist save water, defend the dam's potential to produce hydropower and provide officers with more time to determine learn how to function the dam at lower water levels.

"We have by no means taken this step earlier than in the Colorado Basin," assistant Interior Division secretary Tanya Trujillo advised reporters on Tuesday. "However the circumstances we see in the present day, and what we see on the horizon, demand that we take prompt motion."

Federal officials last 12 months ordered the first-ever water cuts for the Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to more 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 nearly three-quarters of the obtainable 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 contemplating 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 momentary reductions in releases from Lake Powell be applied without triggering additional water cuts in any of the states.

The megadrought within the western U.S. has fueled the driest two decades in the area in no less than 1,200 years, with conditions prone 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 changing, our actions are answerable for that, and we have now to take accountable action to respond," Trujillo stated. "We all must work collectively to guard the sources we have and the declining water supplies within the Colorado River that our communities rely on."