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 Publish via Getty Photographs

The federal government on Tuesday announced it should delay the release of water from one of many Colorado River's major reservoirs, an unprecedented action that will temporarily tackle declining reservoir levels fueled by the historic Western drought.

The choice will maintain more water in Lake Powell, the reservoir located on the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona, as an alternative of releasing it downstream to Lake Mead, the river's other main reservoir.

The actions come as water ranges at each reservoirs reached their lowest ranges on report. Lake Powell's water stage is at present at an elevation of 3,523 feet. If the level drops beneath 3,490 feet, the so-called minimum power pool, the Glen Canyon Dam, which supplies electrical energy for about 5.8 million prospects in the inland West, will no longer be capable to generate electricity.

The delay is anticipated to guard operations on the dam for subsequent 12 months, officers stated during a press briefing on Tuesday, and can preserve almost 500,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. Beneath a separate plan, officers can even release about 500,000 acre-feet of water into Lake Powell from Flaming Gorge, a reservoir situated upstream at the Utah-Wyoming border.

Officials stated the actions will assist save water, protect the dam's capability to produce hydropower and provide officials with extra time to figure out the best way to operate the dam at decrease water levels.

"We've got by no means taken this step before within the Colorado Basin," assistant Inside Division secretary Tanya Trujillo informed reporters on Tuesday. "However the conditions we see immediately, and what we see on the horizon, demand that we take prompt motion."

Federal officers last year ordered the first-ever water cuts for the Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to more than 40 million individuals and some 2.5 million acres of croplands in the West. The cuts have largely affected farmers in Arizona, who use practically three-quarters of the accessible 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 considering taking emergency action to handle declining water ranges 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 applied without triggering additional water cuts in any of the states.

The megadrought within the western U.S. has fueled the driest twenty years in the region in at the very least 1,200 years, with circumstances more likely to proceed by way of 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 altering, our actions are chargeable for that, and we have to take accountable motion to reply," Trujillo stated. "All of us have to work collectively to protect the sources we have and the declining water supplies in the Colorado River that our communities rely on."