To understand where you’re going, you have to know where you’ve come from. That’s the idea researchers were pursuing with the recent geochemical analysis of a single stalagmite from a cave in Grand Canyon National Park.
More specifically, they measured the ratio of stable isotopes in calcite deposits within the stalagmite to help predict how the volume of groundwater aquifers may be affected by a warming climate.
A large release of water from Lake Powell began Monday morning. It’s water that will eventually end up in Lake Mead near Las Vegas after a two-day journey through the Grand Canyon where it will help restore sandbars and beaches while moving sediment downriver.
On a spring morning in 1996, then–Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt stood at Glen Canyon Dam, a concrete bulwark in Arizona that holds back the Colorado River to form Lake Powell. During a live broadcast on the Today show, a popular national TV program, Babbitt opened valves to unleash an unprecedented experimental flood into the Grand Canyon just downstream. As onlookers applauded, water gushed from gaping outlet pipes. Babbitt called the experiment, which was testing one way of restoring Grand Canyon ecosystems damaged by the dam, the start of “a new era” in environmental management.
Developers want to build a vast hydroelectric power facility that would flood sacred lands, threaten waterways and put habitats at risk.
Summer energy demands driven higher as the COVID-19 pandemic keeps more people at home could lead to more water flowing from Glen Canyon Dam into the Colorado River.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
