Tuesday, May 03, 2022

U.S. takes unprecedented steps to replenish Colorado River's Lake Powell

 U.S. officials on Tuesday announced unprecedented measures to boost water levels at Lake Powell, an artificial reservoir on the Colorado River that is so low as to endanger the production of hydroelectric power for seven Western states.

Amid a sustained drought exacerbated by climate change, the Bureau of Reclamation will release an additional 500,000 acre-feet (616.7 million cubic meters) of water this year from the Flaming Gorge Reservoir upstream on the Wyoming-Utah border that will flow into Lake Powell.

Another 480,000 acre-feet that otherwise would have been released downstream will be retained in the artificial lake on the Utah-Arizona border, officials said.

...The additional 980,000 acre-feet in Lake Powell, formed when the Colorado River was dammed in northern Arizona in the 1960s, will help keep the Glen Canyon Dam's hydroelectric production online, raising the reservoir's record low surface by 16 feet (4.88 meters), the bureau said.

If Lake Powell, the second largest U.S. reservoir, were to drop another 32 feet, the 1,320-megawatt plant would be unable to generate electricity for millions of people in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Nebraska...MORE

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