Officials Pull ‘Emergency Lever’ as Lake Powell Plunges to New Low

The newest megadrought alarm bell simply went off within the West. The Bureau of Reclamation started emergency water releases from reservoirs upstream within the Colorado River this week in an effort to maintain Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir, full sufficient to proceed to generate hydroelectric energy.

The artifical lake, which sits alongside the essential Colorado River, has reached the bottom ranges it’s been in many years as a consequence of excessive warmth and the searing drought that’s gripped the area coupled with overuse. The reservoir is projected to hit a essential new low of (1,075 meters) by April 2022, simply 25 ft (7.6 meters) above the extent at which hydropower can now not be generated. The Bureau of Reclamation said the emergency releases from reservoirs upstream—which incorporates the Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming, the Blue Mesa Reservoir in Colorado, and the Navajo Reservoir in New Mexico—will proceed till December and will final into subsequent yr.

The low water ranges in Lake Powell aren’t only a drawback for the industries and cities that depend on the water within the reservoir. It’s additionally a difficulty for the Glen Canyon Dam, a 1,320-megawatt hydroelectric power plant that produces electrical energy distributed to clients in seven completely different states. The Bureau of Reclamation stated the releases from Flaming Gorge, which is able to begin this month, will improve the water stage 50 cubic ft (1.4 cubic meters) per second on daily basis, and can final till July 23.

Glen Canyon Dam isn’t the one hydropower plant dealing with hassle with the West’s megadrought. The water stage at Lake Oroville, California’s largest reservoir, has dipped so low this summer season through the state’s searing warmth that officers say they might should shut off the hydropower plant there.

“We are facing unprecedented dry conditions in the Colorado River Basin, Rebecca Mitchell, Upper Colorado River Commissioner for the state of Colorado, told KUNC. “More details about conditions as well as planning efforts are forthcoming. What we do know is that the Upper Basin Drought Contingency Plan calls for increased coordination and planning in situations like this. And those agreements call for the Bureau of Reclamation to closely consult with the Upper Basin States, including Colorado. It has never been more critical to work together.”

Releasing water from upstream reservoirs throughout a megadrought is a giant deal; as a supply told KUNC reporter Luke Runyon, “Reclamation just pulled the emergency lever.” The Colorado River offers ingesting water for 40 million folks in states throughout the Southwest. Lake Powell was constructed within the early Sixties, with the intention to create a reservoir of provide for states alongside the higher a part of the river to ship water to states within the decrease a part of the river, as a part of the 100-year-old water settlement that dictates how the river’s water is distributed. But historic overuse of the river’s assets paired with local weather change—which, studies have shown, might lower circulation by as a lot as 30% by 2050—has meant that the river’s circulation is quickly diminishing.

The water ranges in Lake Powell don’t simply have an effect on hydropower, but additionally how water is distributed all through the Southwest. Lake Mead, one other giant reservoir downstream on the river, fell to its lowest ranges in historical past in June. Officials are planning to declare water scarcity situations in August that might set off water-saving measures in surrounding states. If Lake Powell falls beneath that essential threshold of three,525 ft that it’s set to fulfill subsequent spring, it might have an effect on how the decrease states get their water—and trigger potential lawsuits and fights over who has the correct to make use of water from the river.

In 2019, the seven states that depend on the river entered right into a contingency plan for what occurs if Lake Powell drops beneath the edge. Part of the intense state of affairs of this plan was emergency releases from upstream reservoirs, like the kind of releases the Bureau of Reclamation has determined to do that month.

If the water ranges fall beneath 3,525 ft in Lake Powell and the settlement falls aside, it might “potentially lead to seven-state litigation, which we’ve never seen before on [the] Colorado River,” Amy Ostdiek, deputy part chief of the federal, interstate and water data part of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, advised Colorado Public Radio. “Which would create a lot of uncertainty. It would probably be a very long, drawn out process.”

Elsewhere, the West’s reservoirs have come below growing stress. Satellite imagery exhibits many in decline yr over yr. Drinking water high quality is struggling, and at the least one city has dedicated to a moratorium on new development as water assets run dangerously low. Even pure our bodies of water akin to Utah’s Great Salt Lake haven’t escaped from the megadrought, additionally dipping to document lows.