Lake Powell Glen Canyon Dam water launch delayed resulting from drought

Water ranges are at a historic low at Lake Powell on April 5, 2022 in Page, Arizona.

Rj Sangosti| Medianews Group | The Denver Put up through Getty Images

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

The decision will maintain more water in Lake Powell, the reservoir positioned at 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 level is at the moment at an elevation of 3,523 toes. If the extent drops below 3,490 feet, the so-called minimum power pool, the Glen Canyon Dam, which supplies electricity for about 5.8 million customers in the inland West, will now not be capable to generate electrical energy.

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

Officials said the actions will assist save water, defend the dam's ability to supply hydropower and provide officers with more time to figure out how to function the dam at lower water ranges.

"We have now 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 at the moment, and what we see on the horizon, demand that we take prompt action."

Federal officers final 12 months ordered the first-ever water cuts for the Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to more than 40 million individuals and some 2.5 million acres of croplands in the West. The cuts have principally affected farmers in Arizona, who use almost 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 considering taking emergency motion 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 temporary reductions in releases from Lake Powell be carried out with out triggering additional water cuts in any of the states.

The megadrought in the western U.S. has fueled the driest two decades in the region in at the least 1,200 years, with circumstances more likely to continue by 2022 and persist for years. Researchers have estimated that 42% of the drought's severity is attributable to human-caused local weather change.

"Our local weather is altering, our actions are accountable for that, and we've to take accountable action to reply," Trujillo said. "All of us must work collectively to guard the sources we now have and the declining water provides within the Colorado River that our communities rely on."