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 Post through Getty Images

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

The decision will preserve more water in Lake Powell, the reservoir situated on the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona, instead of releasing it downstream to Lake Mead, the river's other primary reservoir.

The actions come as water levels at each reservoirs reached their lowest levels on record. Lake Powell's water level is at present at an elevation of 3,523 toes. If the extent drops beneath 3,490 feet, the so-called minimal energy pool, the Glen Canyon Dam, which provides electrical energy for about 5.8 million prospects within the inland West, will now not be capable to generate electrical energy.

The delay is predicted to guard operations at the dam for next 12 months, officials mentioned throughout a press briefing on Tuesday, and can maintain nearly 500,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. Below a separate plan, officers may even release about 500,000 acre-feet of water into Lake Powell from Flaming Gorge, a reservoir positioned upstream at the Utah-Wyoming border.

Officers mentioned the actions will assist save water, defend the dam's skill to provide hydropower and provide officials with more time to figure out the right way to operate the dam at decrease water levels.

"We've got by no means taken this step before in the Colorado Basin," assistant Interior Department secretary Tanya Trujillo informed 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 final yr 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 largely affected farmers in Arizona, who use nearly three-quarters of the out there water provide 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 address 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 temporary 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 within the area in a minimum of 1,200 years, with conditions more likely to continue by way of 2022 and persist for years. Researchers have estimated that 42% of the drought's severity is attributable to human-caused climate change.

"Our climate is changing, our actions are chargeable for that, and we now have to take accountable motion to respond," Trujillo stated. "All of us have to work collectively to guard the sources we now have and the declining water provides in the Colorado River that our communities depend on."