Feds Plan Extreme Measures to Keep Lake Powell Generating Electricity

On Tuesday, the federal authorities announced that it’s going to take unprecedented steps to keep up water ranges in Lake Powell and stave off an electrical energy provide disaster for the Southwest.

The Bureau of Reclamation will launch an additional 500,000 acre-feet of water into Lake Powell from the upstream Flaming Gorge Reservoir. Another 480,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell that might have in any other case been despatched downstream to Lake Mead will probably be held again. In complete, the water added to Lake Powell will probably be sufficient to fill greater than 483,000 Olympic-size swimming swimming pools.

The actions come amid ongoing, report drought (exacerbated by local weather change) within the U.S. Southwest. The water ranges in each Lake Powell and Lake Mead are the bottom because the reservoirs alongside the Colorado River had been first stuffed.

On prime of offering ingesting water for hundreds of thousands of individuals reliant on the Colorado River Basin system, Lake Powell additionally supplies electrical energy for about 5.8 million households and companies throughout the western U.S.. That energy comes from Glen Canyon Dam’s hydroelectric manufacturing.

But the dam can solely produce electrical energy if the reservoir’s water degree is at or above 3,490 feet. Lake Mead, however, can proceed powering its Hoover Dam hydroelectric operation till an elevation of between 925 and 950 ft. As of scripting this, Lake Powell’s water degree is sitting around 3,523 feet above sea degree, and Lake Mead is at about 1,054 feet.

The resolution to carry 480,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell is a historic one. “We have never taken this step before in the Colorado River Basin. But, the conditions we see today and the potential risk we see on the horizon demand that we take prompt action,” mentioned Tanya Trujillo, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for water and science, throughout a press convention yesterday.

It’s additionally a call that can have downstream results for Lake Mead and the remainder of the Lower Colorado River Basin. Lake Powell releases 8.23 million acre-feet of water into Lake Mead yearly, so this can be a close to 6% discount in that trade. People in Arizona, Nevada, California, and components of Mexico depend on Lake Mead and the decrease Colorado River for water, and much of the Southwest is already beneath restrictions meant to assist protect the availability.

No new restrictions had been introduced together with Tuesday’s plan, however “water users in Arizona, California, and Nevada will continue to make all the required shortage reductions and water saving contributions in accordance with the Basin’s 2019 drought contingency plan and the 2007 interim guidelines,” mentioned Trujillo.

“The actions taken today will save water in Lake Powell to help protect the ability to generate hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam. And they will provide us more time to build knowledge and strategies for how to operate the dam at lower levels that we may be seeing in the future very soon,” she added. She specified that the almost 1,000,000 acre-feet of extra water in Lake Powell ought to be capable to maintain Glen Canyon Dam working for the following yr.

But past the following 12 months, issues stays unsure. “We will make informed decisions based on the hydrology that we see next year, based on the additional cooperative measures that we’re able to develop with our partners, and we will manage in that way going forward,” Trujillo mentioned. “We are taking this action today because our climate is changing. Our actions are responsible for that and we have to take responsible action to respond.”

On an identical notice, Bureau of Reclamation regional director, Wayne Pullan, mentioned within the briefing that “those who planned, designed, and constructed these facilities could not have anticipated the challenges raised by climate change.”

And, though actually true that local weather change is contributing to the West’s drought drawback, it’s additionally true that Lake Powell and Lake Mead lie in deserts. The reservoirs are in areas that had been by no means naturally geared up to provide water for hundreds of thousands of individuals. The baseline for Nevada, Arizona, and Utah is dry, and if we don’t deal with the foundation causes of human-caused local weather change, the future appears to be like even drier.