Tag Archive for: Glen Canyon Dam

More Moisture is Headed to Utah, the West. Will It Help Lake Powell?

/in , /by /Deseret Newsby Amy Joi O’Donoghue

Lake Powell is currently close to 180 feet below full pool and coming off a summer last year where several boat ramps were closed and owners were advised to retrieve their houseboats from the docks.

Releases from a couple of upstream reservoirs, including Flaming Gorge, were made last summer to help the nation’s second largest reservoir and its Glen Canyon Dam, which provides power generation to Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Nebraska.

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Lake Powell Drops to a New Record Low as Feds Scramble to Prop It Up

/in , , /by /KUNCby Alex Hager

Water levels in Lake Powell dropped to a new record low on Tuesday. The nation’s second-largest reservoir is under pressure from climate change and steady demand, and is now the lowest it’s been since it was first filled in the 1960s.

Water levels fell to 3,522.16 feet above sea level, just below the previous record set in April 2022. The reservoir is currently about 22% full, and is expected to keep declining until around May, when mountain snowmelt will rush into the streams that flow downstream to Powell.

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The Colorado River’s Urgent Lesson for Energy Policy

/in , , /by /Slateby Avery Arena

The Colorado River, which allows the desert to sustain itself and powers millions of American homes, is currently engaged in the fight of its life. The rapidly sinking river—victim of a nearly 23-year-long megadrought—stretches 1,450 miles, snaking its way from Colorado through Arizona, Nevada, and California, and finally into Mexico, where it should theoretically dump out into the Sea of Cortez.

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Colorado River Crisis is So Bad, Lakes Mead and Powell Are Unlikely to Refill in Our Lifetimes

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Rong-Gong Lin Ii and Ian James

The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is the deepest it’s been in decades, but those storms that were a boon for Northern California won’t make much of a dent in the long-term water shortage for the Colorado River Basin — an essential source of supplies for Southern California.

In fact, the recent storms haven’t changed a view shared by many Southern California water managers: Don’t expect lakes Mead and Powell, the nation’s largest reservoirs, to fill up again anytime soon.

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Officials Fear ‘Complete Doomsday Scenario’ for Drought-Stricken Colorado River

/in , , /by /The Washington Postby Joshua Partlow

The first sign of serious trouble for the drought-stricken American Southwest could be a whirlpool. It could happen if the surface of Lake Powell, a man-made reservoir along the Colorado River that’s already a quarter of its former size, drops another 38 feet down the concrete face of the 710-foot Glen Canyon Dam here. At that point, the surface would be approaching the tops of eight underwater openings that allow river water to pass through the hydroelectric dam.

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In Arizona, One Utility Has a Front Row Seat to Colorado River Crisis

/in , , /by /KUNCby Alex Hager

Tobyn Pilot took a few crunchy footsteps through the rough red dirt near the edge of a towering cliff. Pilot, an operator at the water plant in Page, Arizona, pulled out a hefty collection of keys and unlocked a tiny plywood-paneled shed just a few feet from the brink. The building is barely bigger than an outhouse, but it’s a pivotal part of keeping the taps flowing.

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At Lake Powell, a ‘Front-Row Seat’ to a Drying Colorado River and an Uncertain Future

/in , , /by /Arizona Republicby Brandon Loomis

At his office whiteboard on this dam town’s desert edge, the water utility manager recited the federal government’s latest measures of the colossal reservoir that lay 4 miles down the road, then scrawled an ominous sketch showing how far it has shrunk.

In his stylized drawing of Lake Powell, the surface lapped just above where he marked his town’s drinking water pipe, bringing the Colorado River drought crisis uncomfortably close to home.

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Can The Lake Powell Pipeline Still Happen?

/in , , /by /Salt Lake Tribuneby Brian Maffly

Already in doubt from the West’s changing climate, a proposed pipeline across southern Utah remains bogged in a regulatory limbo that could hold up the project indefinitely.

If built, Utah’s 143-mile Lake Powell pipeline would draw up to 86,000 acre-feet of the Colorado River’s flow — depleted by drought and overuse — from the ever-shrinking Lake Powell for use in St. George and Kane County.

By the time Utah water bosses clear a stalled environmental review and secure the water rights, however, there may be no Lake Powell as we’ve known it, just a “dead pool” stacked behind Glen Canyon Dam. Complicating this bleak picture is the pipeline’s current design, which places the intakes above the lake’s future levels, leaving them high, dry and unusable if the drought continues to drain the lake.

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Drought and Old Pipes Could Slow Colorado River to a Trickle

/in , /by /E&E Newsby Jennifer Yachnin

In their pleas to Western states to cut back on water use from the Colorado River Basin, federal officials are keenly focused on keeping Lake Powell’s elevation at 3,490 feet — the minimum needed to keep hydropower humming at Glen Canyon Dam.

But if federal efforts can’t stop the reservoir from shrinking to new lows — its elevation is 3,536 feet as of Monday — the lights going out might not even be the worst problem.

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Lake Mead Forecast: Southwest Should Brace for More Water Cuts From Colorado River

/in , , /by /CNNby Rachel Ramirez

More extreme water cuts are all but certain in the Southwest starting next year – including new water cuts for California – according to the latest government forecast for the Colorado River and Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir.

Lake Mead, which provides water to roughly 25 million people in Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico, is losing water at an alarming rate amid an extraordinary, multi-year drought made worse by the climate crisis.

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