Saturday commemorates the 89th anniversary of the Hoover Dam’s completed construction, considered by most experts “a modern miracle” and one of the most visited sites in the world. The 726-foot-high arch-gravity dam stretches 1,244 feet across the Black Canyon and was built over five years starting in 1931, helping provide water and hydroelectrical power to the West.
Last week’s rain and floods in California may soon give way to concerns about drought in the West as spring kicks off the region’s dry season. This year’s storms won’t erase looming drought worries across the entire southwestern U.S., experts fear. Of particular concern are the giant reservoirs of the Colorado River basin, Lakes Mead and Powell, which remain far below capacity.
New Melones Reservoir — critical to Escalon farmland, as well as Manteca, Lathrop, and Tracy water supplies — was at 616,704 acre feet on Oct. 6.
That’s less than half the average 1,326,146 acre feet of water storage for the date of Oct. 5.
To put that in perspective, it is 47 percent of the average in storage for the start of a new California water year that officially started on Oct. 1.
Snowfall in western Colorado elevated some snowpack levels to above-average conditions but that snowy weather must continue for it to recharge the parched soil, diminishing streams and low reservoir levels, climate data shows.
While the Western Slope is in much better shape than it was in early December, Becky Bolinger, a climatologist with Colorado State University, said the eastern portion of the state hasn’t been so fortunate. There, wildfire risk persists and crops and livestock could suffer from the lack of moisture, she said.
