The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) announced water levels in Lake Powell will drop below the target elevation of 3,525 feet in the coming weeks.
As a result of a very dry January and February, the Colorado River Basin’s snowpack has dipped below average in several areas, reducing Lake Powell’s projected inflow by 2.2 million acre-feet (an acre-foot is 325,851 gallons). The BOR’s February “24 Month Study” projects Lake Powell dropping below 3,525 feet sometime in March.
“This year, the Colorado River Basin has experienced extremely variable conditions with a record high snowpack one month, followed by weeks without snow,” said BOR Deputy Commissioner of Operations David Palumbo in a statement. “This variable hydrology and a warmer, drier West have drastically impacted our operations, and we are faced with the urgent need to manage in the moment.”
As part of the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan Agreement, specifically the Drought Response Operations Agreement, BOR describes 3,525 feet as the target elevation and 3,490 feet as the minimum power pool elevation, the lowest point at which Glen Canyon Dam can generate hydropower. The target elevation provides a 35-foot buffer and allows time for response actions to help prevent Lake Powell from dropping below the minimum power pool.
The Glen Canyon Dam is the largest single electricity producer in the Colorado River Storage Project, a system of hydroelectric power plants in the Upper Colorado Basin, producing electricity for 3.2 million customers in the West.
BOR officials said the drop is temporary, and Lake Powell’s elevation is expected to recover above 3,525 feet through the spring runoff season, likely in May.
“Reclamation is not planning to take further action to address this temporary dip below 3,525 feet because the spring runoff will resolve the deficit in the short term,” said BOR Upper Colorado Basin Regional Director Wayne Pullan. “However, our work is not done. Lake Powell is projected to drop below elevation 3,525 feet later this year. Reclamation and the Upper Basin states continue to collaborate with stakeholders and partners to develop and implement additional actions later this year if appropriate.”
In 2021, the Blue Mesa Reservoir in Colorado and the Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming released 161,000 acre-feet of water to preserve water levels in Lake Powell. BOR announced in January it is holding back 350,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell that would normally flow to Lake Mead from January 2022 through April 2022 for release later in the year.
Dave Kanzer, director of science and interstate matters for the Colorado River Water Conservation District, told the Colorado Sun that Lake Powell dropping below 3,525 feet is “very significant.”
“It’s something the collective ‘we’ in the basin have been trying to avoid, unfortunately unsuccessfully,” Kanzer said. “It’s another in a series of wake-up calls for the basin.”
According to BOR, the Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, with the assistance of the Upper Colorado River Commission, are preparing the Drought Response Operations Plan that will propose additional actions to help protect Lake Powell elevations in 2022 if necessary.
In February, an informational meeting was conducted on the draft, available later this spring. The draft framework does not contain any operational proposals. Those will become available when the agency gets a better perspective on the hydrology for the region. Once finalized, the plan will include operational adjustments, releases and recovery within the Colorado River Storage Project’s initial units of the Flaming Gorge, Aspinall and Navajo reservoirs.
Rod Smith, an attorney with the Department of the Interior, said at the meeting the drought response is designed to protect water levels at Lake Powell while also looking at how the reservoirs are managed, which includes the environmental and recreational impacts.
BOR officials stated they would continue to monitor snowpack levels and runoff projections, working with stakeholders to protect the water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead. — Charles Wallace, WLJ editor
