All articles tagged with #bureau of reclamation
Federal water managers are planning sweeping cuts to Colorado River allocations amid ongoing drought and overuse, affecting multiple states and water users across the basin with the aim of stabilizing reservoir levels and ensuring long-term supply, though the move is likely to spark political negotiation and impact farms, cities, and local economies.
With Lake Powell at about 36% of capacity amid record-low snowpack, the Trump administration announced an emergency plan to avert a power and water shortage on the Colorado River. It will release 660,000 to 1,000,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir over the next year to lift Powell, while reducing Powell’s downstream releases by around 19% (about 1.5 million acre-feet) to push more water toward Lake Mead and downstream users in California, Arizona and Nevada. The move, a short-term fix under a 2019 drought agreement, aims to keep turbines turning and water supplies flowing as negotiations for longer-term cuts stall and drought conditions persist.
The US Bureau of Reclamation has presented two options for preventing the Colorado River's depleted reservoirs from falling to critically low levels, saying it could either impose cuts across the Southwest by following the water-rights priority system or by using an across-the-board percentage. The reductions, if adopted, could affect cities and farming areas in California, Arizona and Nevada. The river's largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have declined dramatically during 23 years of drought intensified by climate change.
Lake Mead's water level is defying projections and is almost 3 feet above the projected level, thanks to recent rain and snowpack in the Colorado Rockies. Lake Powell has also risen more than a foot over the last month. However, the Bureau of Reclamation predicts that Lake Mead could drop to 1,036.9 feet by the end of April, just over 9 feet lower than its current level.