Lake Powell Hits 40% Of Capacity, Will Keep Dropping to March/April 2005

[hatrack]

Well, 40.04%, but hey, close enough!

It's holding 9.73 million acre-feet at the moment. Its original capacity was 27 MAF, and after 40 years of sedimentation, it can only hold about 24 MAF today even when completely full.

Please note that the "Net Flow WY 2004" given isn't strictly accurate - it states that the reservoir has lost 8.65% of "content". This is wrong - 8.65% of "capacity" would be the correct word choice.

http://www.summittech.com/LakePowell/LP_WaterDB.php

[4morewars]

1. Keep watering those golf courses !!!

And the lawns too.

[RobertSeattle]

2. Dam It!

Oh wait, it already is...

:evilgrin:

[hatrack]

3. Buh-da-BOOM!!

Thanks, folks, I'll be here all week - and be sure to enjoy he creamed corn at the buffet!!

[Kolesar]

4. 85' drop and lost half its volume in five years

Look at the changes in inflow!

Date: elevation, "content", inflow, outflow

Aug 10, 2003: 3608.69 12598884 4008 10244

Aug 10, 1999: 3693.75 23332248 16632 19347

[Massacure]

5. Did some calculations

On average for the last two weeks, it lost about 8,500 cubic feet per second. There are 9,738,700 acre feet as of August 9th. 43,560 cubic feet equals an acre foot. Therefor, there are 424,217,772,000 cubic feet. It will take about 577 days to drain that if it continues losing at 8,500 cubic feet a second.

[hatrack]

6. Of course, that's assuming continuing net loss at 8,500 cusecs

What'll happen is that come October or so, when electricity demand drops with the end of hot weather, the dam operators will substantially cut the amount of water going through the penstocks & river outlets. At the moment, the reservoir's dropping up to three inches a day, which is huge, given its volume and surface area. But that drop rate won't last too far into the fall.

What they are looking at is the possibility that the dam won't be able to generate electricity in as little as two more years. Lack of water volume has already caused cutbacks in power production, due to lack of hydrologic head (i.e. vertical feet of water above the turbines). The water level now has to drop less than 100' before the intakes come out of the water and all power generation stops.

After that, the river outlet valves are only about 80 feet below the turbine intake level. If the water level goes all the way down below the river outlets, then there's no way to release water downstream. The Colorado River below the dam would simply stop flowing. No one knows if the drought will be that bad or continue that long, but if the current situation continues, this could happen around 2008 or 2009.

[phantom power]

7. SRP is running radio ads in Phoenix for water conservation

What's interesting about these ads is that the tone of them is fairly serious. They know we're flirting with a disaster. Or, at least a big problem.

What I can't believe is that we haven't yet begun mandatory conservation. People still seem to be operating on the theory that the drought just *has* to end soon. I have this feeling that we're going to wish we'd started conservation efforts years ago, before it's over.

[NNadir]

8. What is happening at "Lake" Mead?

[phantom power]

9. levels have fallen about 80 feet in the last four years

To my knowledge, every reservoir in the state is low, although some are lower than others.

It's all very un-cool.