Lake Powell Glen Canyon Dam water release delayed as a result 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 Post via Getty Images

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

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

The actions come as water ranges at each reservoirs reached their lowest levels on document. Lake Powell's water stage is currently at an elevation of 3,523 toes. If the extent drops beneath 3,490 ft, the so-called minimum energy pool, the Glen Canyon Dam, which provides electrical energy for about 5.8 million prospects within the inland West, will no longer have the ability to generate electrical energy.

The delay is expected to guard operations at the dam for next 12 months, officials said throughout a press briefing on Tuesday, and will hold practically 500,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. Underneath a separate plan, officials can even launch about 500,000 acre-feet of water into Lake Powell from Flaming Gorge, a reservoir located upstream at the Utah-Wyoming border.

Officers said the actions will help save water, shield the dam's potential to produce hydropower and provide officers with more time to determine methods to operate the dam at lower water ranges.

"We now have never taken this step earlier than within the Colorado Basin," assistant Interior Department secretary Tanya Trujillo advised reporters on Tuesday. "However the conditions we see at this time, and what we see on the horizon, demand that we take prompt action."

Federal officials last 12 months ordered the first-ever water cuts for the Colorado River Basin, which provides water to greater than 40 million people and a few 2.5 million acres of croplands within the West. The cuts have mostly affected farmers in Arizona, who use nearly 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 action to handle declining water levels at Lake Powell.

Later that month, representatives from the states sent a letter to the Interior agreeing with the proposal and requesting that non permanent reductions in releases from Lake Powell be implemented without triggering further water cuts in any of the states.

The megadrought within the western U.S. has fueled the driest two decades within the area in no less than 1,200 years, with conditions prone to continue 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've got to take accountable motion to respond," Trujillo stated. "We all have to work together to protect the sources we now have and the declining water supplies within the Colorado River that our communities depend on."