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 Web page, Arizona.

Rj Sangosti| Medianews Group | The Denver Publish through Getty Photos

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

The decision will preserve more water in Lake Powell, the reservoir located at the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona, as an alternative 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 levels on report. Lake Powell's water level is at present at an elevation of 3,523 ft. If the extent drops beneath 3,490 feet, the so-called minimal power pool, the Glen Canyon Dam, which supplies electricity for about 5.8 million customers in the inland West, will now not be capable of generate electricity.

The delay is expected to guard operations on the dam for next 12 months, officers said during a press briefing on Tuesday, and can maintain nearly 500,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. Beneath 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, protect the dam's means to provide hydropower and supply officers with extra time to figure out learn how to operate the dam at lower water levels.

"We have by no means taken this step before in the Colorado Basin," assistant Interior Division secretary Tanya Trujillo informed reporters on Tuesday. "However the conditions we see in the present day, and what we see on the horizon, demand that we take immediate action."

Federal officers last 12 months ordered the first-ever water cuts for the Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to more than 40 million individuals and a few 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 supply 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 motion to deal with declining water levels at Lake Powell.

Later that month, representatives from the states despatched a letter to the Interior agreeing with the proposal and requesting that short-term reductions in releases from Lake Powell be carried out without triggering additional water cuts in any of the states.

The megadrought in the western U.S. has fueled the driest 20 years in the area in a minimum of 1,200 years, with conditions 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 respond," Trujillo said. "We all must work together to protect the sources we've got and the declining water supplies within the Colorado River that our communities depend on."