Click the link to read the article on the Associated Press website (Tom Howarth). Here’s an excerpt:
As the American Southwest grapples with a historic water crisis, some advocacy groups, such as the Glen Canyon Institute (GCI), propose drastic measures like draining Lake Powell to address the diminishing flow of the Colorado River. However, Arizona’s top water official, Tom Buschatzke, has warned that this approach could exacerbate the problem rather than resolve it. Buschatzke, the director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, outlined the risks of removing Lake Powell from the equation in the broader water management system. His argument underscores the importance of maintaining the reservoir as a buffer against the volatility of the Colorado River’s flow.
“Bigger reductions in the flow of the river that might attend to climate change are something that is being looked at,” Buschatzke told Newsweek. “But if you take Lake Powell out of the equation, the yield of the system is going to go down.”
[…]
“There will be wet years in which you won’t have storage to save the water,” he said. “So the overall yield over a longer-term average has to go down without Lake Powell. That means you have less usable water, and that might not be the outcome you’re trying to achieve.”
[…]
The proposal to drain Lake Powell also highlights a broader philosophical divide in water management: incremental fixes versus transformative changes. According to Buschatzke, large-scale reforms, while potentially impactful, are fraught with challenges…Groups like the GCI disagree with Buschatzke, arguing that bypassing Glen Canyon and adopting a “Fill Mead First” policy could not only help manage water in the system more effectively but also recreate the landscape lost when Glen Canyon Dam was first constructed in the 1960s. As the levels of the lake have receded in recent years, plants and animals have reclaimed in the shores in what’s been dubbed an “ecological rebirth.”