Lake Powell

[VGNonly]

On August 2 the level was 3555.90, yesterday was at 3551.84, a drop of 4 feet in 2 weeks.

[hunter]

1. I hope I live long enough to see that dam removed.

Otherwise it's a ticking time bomb we're leaving to future generations who may not, if our modern industrial civilization collapses, have the capacity to remove the dam themselves.

[Thunderbeast]

4. Seldom Seen?

[VGNonly]

13. "Let's pray for a little pre-cision earthquake"

[Ol Janx Spirit]

2. Isn't there just a gigantic valve somewhere that Dumb Don can order the Army Corps of Engineers...

...to open and divert all of that water flowing from the Pacific Northwest into the ocean to go into the Colorado River? /s

[hatrack]

3. BOR now projecting that power generation at GCD may stop as early as December 2026

Admittedly, that's their worst-case scenario across a range of forecasts, but here we are.

The reservoir is already below 30% of remaining capacity, and barring possible monsoon flash flooding, there won't be any significant rise in water level before April of next year.

https://lakepowell.water-data.com/

[czarjak]

5. The Rio Grande..

Not even trickling down to Albuquerque.

[hatrack]

7. And Elephant Butte downstream is at a whopping 3.8% of capacity . . .

https://waterdatafortexas.org/reservoirs/individual/elephant-butte

But then, nothing new at Elephant Butte, really . . .

1994


2013

[czarjak]

8. Sad2

[LeftInTX]

18. That's like Medina Lake near San Antonio. I think it's been at 5% for almost 20 years now!

I think the world has basically given up on it. If it rains, people get in the lake, then it dries and everyone goes out. They can't even keep the lake stocked at all. During last month's flood there was water in the lake.

The lake is about 110 years old. It only has a capacity of 254,823 acre-feet. The lake isn't used for electricity.

[dalton99a]

6. Only 31% full.

[VGNonly]

9. What is the actual depth of Lake Powell?

Considering the rate of sedimentation, the real amount of water capacity could be far less.

[hatrack]

10. Varies by location - the original gradient of the Colorado was 2' per mile . . .

Maximum depth was about 550 feet at the face of the dam when it first filled in 1980 (and it took 17 years to fill the reservoir).

It was designed with capacity of 27 million acre-feet. It's now down to about 25 million acre-feet capacity, though that's at full pool, which is hasn't hit since the 1990s.

In terms of water it's actually storing now, it's about 7.2 million-acre-feet, so less than one-third of remaining capacity.

[VGNonly]

11. I checked with the sedimentation rate.

They estimated about 6.7% of Lake Powell is now filled with sediment.

Where I live in Ohio we've only had 0.06" of rain for the whole month of August.

[hatrack]

15. This came out about 10 years ago - it's a more general look at the end of the age of dams . ..

Last edited Mon Aug 18, 2025, 07:01 PM - Edit history (1)

A really excellent introduction to a big and complicated topic.

[VGNonly]

12. A Big Dam Problem

[hatrack]

14. "We will let people in the future worry about that" - Floyd Dominy, Commissioner of Reclamation

That's the thing about the future - eventually, it arrives.

[Xolodno]

16. He wanted to build a dam just outside the Grand Canyon National Park boundaries.

Even claimed the new lake would improve views of the Grand Canyon. The Sierra Club went on offense and said "would flood the Sistine Chapel just so you could get closer to view the cieling?"

If that guy saw a river, he wanted to dam it.

Hetch Hetchy is another I like to see deconstructed. Granted its still needed, but several smaller and modern dams can do the same further down. Of course it will take ages to restore the area.

[VGNonly]

17. The future is now,

remove Glen Canyon Dam.

[VGNonly]

19. Lake Powell September 3

3547.77, a drop of a bit over 4' since August 16.

[VGNonly]

20. 3545.40 as of Tuesday

a drop of 10.5 feet.