Lake Powell Loses 40,000 Acre-Feet of Water

Photograph: Bernard Spragg/Flickr

The Colorado River is in hassle, and has been for many years. It’s overextended, and even with back-to-back stellar water years, it’s nonetheless in unhealthy form. That’s why the latest information about an unintended launch of 40,000 acre-feet of water from the Higher Colorado River Basin is worrying, to say the least.

In line with Jerd Smith of Fresh Water News, Bureau of Reclamation officers confirmed that an unintended 40,000 acre-feet of water was discharged from Lake Powell between 2021 and 2022. That was a time of vital water ranges at Lake Powell that threatened the reservoir’s skill to generate energy. To mitigate that, releases have been despatched upstream from Flaming Gorge and Blue Mesa reservoirs. As that water arrived, it needed to be pushed via Powell into Lake Mead for energy era, and to stability the water ranges between these two reservoirs. That’s when an additional 40,000 acre-feet of water left Powell, which implies it formally left the Higher Colorado River Basin. And based on Smith’s reporting, there aren’t any plans to revive that misplaced water to the Higher Basin.

“Underneath the 2007 Interim Pointers, this was the primary time Reclamation balanced the contents between lakes Powell and Mead in close to real-time, working towards shortly altering hydrology over the course of just some months,” Alex Pivarnik, supervisory hydrologist with Reclamation’s Higher Colorado Basin Area, mentioned in an emailed statement to Smith. “Getting it inside 0.5% is fairly outstanding, given the circumstances,”

40,000 acre-feet is sufficient water to serve 80,000 homes for one to 2 years, based on Smith. So, whereas it’s not a large quantity of water compared to the whole Colorado River, it’s nonetheless a major mistake.

This information comes as Higher and Decrease Basin states are preventing over new working guidelines for the Colorado River, as the present guidelines expire in 2026. Higher Basin states need a bigger share of their water, whereas Decrease Basin states, together with California, are reluctant to surrender their shares.