Click the link to read the article on The Aspen Daily News website (Austin Corona). Here’s an excerpt:
A wet winter and strong runoff season have drastically reduced the possibility that water levels in lakes Powell and Mead will drop to “critical elevations” in the next three years, according to a newly updated draft statement released by the federal government on Wednesday [October 25, 2023]. Citing updated hydrological data, the updated draft statement indicates the short-term outlook for the two drought-stricken reservoirs is not as dire as previously thought…
Estimates in the new draft statement, released by the Bureau of Reclamation — the federal agency overseeing dams at the reservoirs — show a 49 and 48 percentage point decrease in the likelihood that water levels in lakes Powell and Mead will drop to critical elevations by 2027. This assumes the bureau and states take no additional action to alter existing reservoir operation guidelines. The decrease is in comparison with estimates from a previous statement released in April. According to the new draft statement, these likelihoods have dropped to only eight and four percent in Powell and Mead, respectively. A Wednesday press release defined “critical elevations” as low water levels that would threaten hydropower production and water releases through the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams.
Wednesday’s draft statement attributes the reservoir’s brighter short-term outlook to a wet 2022/23 winter and a strong runoff season in the upper Colorado River basin. The newly revised draft statement used hydrological data from June, 2023, for its modeling, whereas the original document used hydrological data from September, 2022.
The newly revised draft statement, titled the “Near-term Colorado River Operations: Revised Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement,” is the second version of a draft document released in April, which is meant to weigh the impacts of potential adjustments to dam operation guidelines at lakes Powell and Mead through 2026. According to Wednesday’s draft statement, the bureau is considering adjustments to dam operation guidelines because of “extraordinary circumstances” created by dropping water levels in lakes Powell and Mead. In 2022, declining water levels had reached all-time lows in both reservoirs. The bureau has expressed concern that existing dam operation guidelines created in 2007, along with existing drought contingency plans, would not be enough to sustain the reservoirs in the face of extended drought. According to a Wednesday press release, the statement is part of an ongoing effort to “address the ongoing drought and impacts from the climate crisis” and “protect Glen Canyon and Hoover Dam operations, system integrity, and public health and safety through 2026.”