Tag Archive for: Lake Mead

Feds Suspend Measures That Were Meant to Boost Water Levels at Drought-Stricken Lake Powell

/in , /by

Starting Tuesday, the US Bureau of Reclamation will suspend extra water releases from Utah’s Flaming Gorge reservoir — emergency measures that had served to help stabilize the plummeting water levels downstream at Lake Powell, the nation’s second largest reservoir.

Federal officials began releasing extra water from Flaming Gorge in 2021 to boost Lake Powell’s level and buy its surrounding communities more time to plan for the likelihood the reservoir will eventually drop too low for the Glen Canyon Dam to generate hydropower.

Lake Mead Keeps Shrinking as States Struggle to Find Colorado River Cuts

/in , , /by /Las Vegas Review-Journalby Colton Lochhead

Getting states to agree to use less water is hard. Doing so in a matter of months is near impossible.

The last time the Colorado River Basin agreed to a set of reductions to address drought conditions and dropping levels at Lake Mead was in 2019. Those reductions took five years to iron out and amounted to a fraction of what the federal government now says needs to be cut in order to keep the system from crashing.

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Proposed Pause on Reservoir Releases Prompts Lower Basin States to Respond

/in , , /by /KUNCby Alex Hager

The three states that comprise the Colorado River’s Lower Basin – Arizona, California and Nevada – are weighing in on a proposal to pause some water releases from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in an effort to prop up Lake Powell.

Those states essentially agreed with the idea of suspending water releases, but said water managers should wait a few months to see the full effects of spring runoff, and leave the door open for additional releases if warranted. They also stressed the need for input from all of the states which use water from the Colorado River.

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‘A Nice Sign’: Big Rockies Snowpack May Boost Lake Mead

/in , , /by /Las Vegas Review-Journalby Colton Lochhead

It’s not even March yet, but the mountains that feed the Colorado River already have seen more snow this winter than they normally would through an entire snow season.

And with some snow in the forecast, there’s still more time for that snowpack to grow.

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Calif. Reservoir Levels Show Signs of Improvement After Recent Winter Storms

/in , , /by /ABC 7 by Zach Fuentes

All of this rain in California has had positive impacts on some of the state’s main reservoirs. Though officials say reservoir levels have seen major improvements, we’re not out of the drought yet.

“California, statewide is at 131% of average precipitation,” said Jeanine Jones, interstate resources manager for the California Department of Water Resources, “What that means is that a lot of our reservoirs have had the opportunity to improve significantly, compared to last year or the year before. Most of our reservoirs are fairly close to full.”

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Opinion: Solving the Worsening Drought in the Western States Will Require All of Us Working Together

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Alex Padilla and Dianne Feinstein

For Californians, drought has been a constant and inescapable fact of life for decades. Worsening drought in the Western United States is just one of the many life-threatening impacts of the climate crisis. And as drying conditions bring water reservoirs along the Colorado River to dangerously low levels, the impact of extended drought conditions is now threatening 40 million Americans’ access to water — unless we can come up with a plan to protect it.

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When Will The Megadrought Gripping Southwestern States End?

/in , , /by /MSNby Jess Thomson

California and other southwestern states have been in the grip of a megadrought for the past two decades.

Scientists say that, despite recent storms, these drought-stricken states won’t be relieved from the hot and dry weather for a long time, and not without large amounts of rain.

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Upper Colorado River States Land $125 Million for Pilot Conservation Program Amid Drought Crisis

/in , /by /The Colorado Sunby Michael Booth

Upper Colorado River Basin states have a new $125 million pot to rent and dry agricultural land and keep more water in the drought-plagued waterway, in a major expansion of a previous conservation pilot announced by the Biden administration’s Bureau of Reclamation.

 

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Understanding California’s Relationship With the Colorado River

/in , , /by /SFGATEby Amy Graff

It may feel like California is flush with water at the moment, after a winter of historic storms that replenished drought-starved lakes and left the Sierra Nevada snowpack at the deepest it’s been in 28 years. But follow the Colorado River, which supplies 15% of California’s water, back to bottomed-out reservoirs like Nevada’s Lake Mead, and it becomes clear the future of water in the Golden State is still very much in flux.

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Still No Agreement Between Western States, Including CA, on How to Reduce Colorado River Water Use

/in , , /by /ABC 7 by Rob McMillan

With the Colorado River in crisis, there is still no agreement over which states and regions should have their water allocations cut back and how soon those cuts should go into effect.

Seven states in the western United States take water from the Colorado River, and although six of them have agreed on a framework, the lone holdout is the largest user of Colorado River water in the county: California.

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