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GLEN CANYON — Utah experienced a huge year for precipitation in the 2018-2019 winter, but everyone is wondering if it will be enough to compensate for past years of drought and help refill the state’s reservoirs. Citizens are in particular looking toward Lake Powell, which has experienced steadily lowering water levels in the past decade.
The Colorado River snakes from the Rocky Mountains across the southwestern United States. When it hits southern Utah, the river hits a series of dams to provide both power and water to the drought-ridden western U.S., according to NASA. Glen Canyon Dam, which blocks up the river to form Lake Powell, is one such water source. A growing demand for water and a steady drought has caused a dramatic decrease in the water level of Lake Powell.
As of March this year, Lake Powell’s water elevation (level of water) is 43 feet lower than March of 2018. Lake Mead, meanwhile, is up 1.78 feet in water elevation in comparison to 2018. Utahns have been wondering why.
“It’s a difference in hydrology between the upper basin and the lower basin,” Marlon Duke, public affairs officer for the Bureau of Reclamation in the Colorado Region. “It’s pretty common for Lake Mead to rise through this time of the year because we have consistent releases from Lake Powell down to Lake Mead throughout the winter months.”
In other words, Lake Mead receives a steady influx of water during the winter months, while Lake Powell relies on snowpack runoff to fuel its water levels. Duke said, “We expect that this will change as we move into spring and our snowmelt runoff season.”
Runoff season generally begins in mid-late April, according to Duke. The water levels will continue to increase until around late July, depending on the weather. “What we like to see is a gradual, steady warm up so we have a consistent runoff,” he explained.
Duke is expecting Lake Powell will receive an average inflow of water this year which, while being a great improvement in comparison to the past few years, is lower than some might expect.
“While we did get a lot of snowfall in the upper basin here and we’re really happy about that, one of the things that’s still working against us is that we went into this winter season at the end of 2018, which was one of the absolute driest years on record,” Duke said. “We got into fall and started to get into the snowpack season, but the soil moisture throughout the upper basin was extremely dry.”
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Extremely dry soil makes it very absorbent, so in the spring when the snow begins to melt a lot of it will go into the ground to saturate the soil. Duke explained, “Which means that not all of the snow will make it into rivers and reservoirs. We expect that we’ll have an average inflow of water into Lake Powell this year. We expect that we will release about 9 million acre-feet from Lake Powell, which is what we’ve released for the past four years in a row.”
The past two decades have marked declines in water elevation in Lake Powell, showing dramatic decreases. Duke believes it’s the result of a combination of drought and an increased demand for water.
“As our cities and towns have grown, that also means our demand for water grows,” he said. “We have a need to deliver that water, and we’ve met that need throughout every year of the drought. After almost 20 years of one of the most significant droughts in history, we kind of have to think that maybe this is starting to be normal for us.”
A video created by NASA illustrated the progression of water loss at Lake Powell. The unregulated inflow into Lake Powell in the past 19 years has only been above average four times. It has been the lowest 19-year span of time since the dam was closed in 1963.
A 24-month study conducted in March projected that at the end of 2019 Lake Powell will hold a water elevation of around 3,592.84 feet with around 22,000 acre-feet (47 percent of full capacity).