Lake Powell Glen Canyon Dam water launch delayed attributable to 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 Images

The federal authorities on Tuesday announced it's going to delay the release of water from one of the Colorado River's main reservoirs, an unprecedented action that may temporarily address declining reservoir levels fueled by the historic Western drought.

The decision will maintain more water in Lake Powell, the reservoir situated on the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona, as a substitute 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 degree is at the moment at an elevation of three,523 feet. If the level drops below 3,490 toes, the so-called minimum power pool, the Glen Canyon Dam, which provides electricity for about 5.8 million customers within the inland West, will no longer be able to generate electricity.

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

Officials stated the actions will assist save water, shield the dam's means to produce hydropower and supply officials with extra time to determine methods to operate the dam at lower water ranges.

"Now we have by no means taken this step before within the Colorado Basin," assistant Inside Division secretary Tanya Trujillo told reporters on Tuesday. "However the situations we see right now, and what we see on the horizon, demand that we take immediate action."

Federal officials last 12 months ordered the first-ever water cuts for the Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to more than 40 million folks and some 2.5 million acres of croplands in the West. The cuts have mostly affected farmers in Arizona, who use almost three-quarters of the out there 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 short-term reductions in releases from Lake Powell be applied with out triggering additional water cuts in any of the states.

The megadrought within the western U.S. has fueled the driest 20 years in the region in at the very least 1,200 years, with situations likely 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 responsible for that, and we've got to take responsible motion to respond," Trujillo said. "All of us must work collectively to guard the assets we now have and the declining water supplies within the Colorado River that our communities depend on."