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hatrack

(59,442 posts)
Tue Jul 13, 2021, 08:02 AM Jul 2021

USBR Engineers Give 79% Chance That Powell Water Levels Will Fall Below 3525' Target This Year

EDIT

The enormous, life-sustaining buckets of water in the drought-stricken West are emptying so fast that the Bureau of Reclamation added a new monthly report – on top of three already scheduled this year – to keep up.

The bureau said the loss of water is accelerating, confirming projections that massive water restrictions will begin in 2022 for the three Lower Basin states in the seven-state Colorado River Compact. Conservation groups believe Arizona will lose more than 500,000 acre-feet of water usually delivered by the Colorado in 2022 through voluntary and mandatory cuts, forcing significant reductions to irrigated farming in the desert state. Some, but not all, of Arizona’s share will be replaced in trades using water already “banked” in the reservoirs.

The bureau’s report for June, added on to previously scheduled reservoir updates for January, April and August, paints a dire picture. As snowpack runoff disappeared into dry ground instead of hitting the reservoirs, engineers calculated a 79% chance Lake Powell will fall below its minimum target water height of 3,525 feet above sea level next year. That minimum provides only a 35-foot cushion for the minimum water level of 3,490 feet needed to spill water into the electric turbines. The bureau said there is now a 5% chance Lake Powell falls below the minimum needed to generate any power in 2023, and a 17% chance in 2024 — the odds are going up with each new report.

Lake Mead, which feeds the three Lower Basin compact states of Nevada, California and Arizona, is in even worse shape. The compact requires declaration of restriction-triggering “shortage condition” if Mead hits 1,075 feet or lower. Mead is falling now, and the bureau affirmed the shortage declaration will happen in August. Las Vegas, a short drive from Mead and Hoover Dam, hit 117 degrees on July 10, and longtime local users are alarmed at how fast the pool is evaporating into desert skies.

EDIT

https://coloradosun.com/2021/07/13/drought-drains-colorado-river-reservoirs-faster/

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USBR Engineers Give 79% Chance That Powell Water Levels Will Fall Below 3525' Target This Year (Original Post) hatrack Jul 2021 OP
It's way worse than that if Ken Burns "The Dustbowl" was accurate. That said that brewens Jul 2021 #1
32 feet below current level but dropping 1/5 to 1/4 foot a day right now. OnlinePoker Jul 2021 #2

brewens

(13,397 posts)
1. It's way worse than that if Ken Burns "The Dustbowl" was accurate. That said that
Tue Jul 13, 2021, 08:11 AM
Jul 2021

the giant aquifer that provides a lot of irrigation water in the southern plains will dry up in about15 years. That's been out for a few years now, so that is getting closer fast. That was water left from retreating glaciers at the end of the last ice age that won't be replenished.

If huge areas can't be farmed, I wonder if letting it go back to natural prairie and bringing the buffalo back might be a good idea? Could Native Americans run a huge open range buffalo ranch or something like that? If buffalo grass is the only thing that can grow there, raising buffalo would be better than nothing.

OnlinePoker

(5,702 posts)
2. 32 feet below current level but dropping 1/5 to 1/4 foot a day right now.
Tue Jul 13, 2021, 08:26 AM
Jul 2021

It's now the dry season and rivers feeding Powell are only running at 21%. I would put it at 100% that it will hit that level by the end of the year.

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