Lake Powell is on the verge of a record low, Colorado Springs in the middle of contingency planning | Colorado Springs News
With Lake Powell set to hit a new record low in the coming days, Colorado Springs water storage levels are in good shape after a wet spring reduced the need to water lawns and gardens.
However, since the city draws up to 70% of its water annually from the Colorado River Basin, Colorado Springs Utilities staff are monitoring the exceptional drought conditions and low water levels throughout the basin. After two years of drought, conditions on the Colorado River are deteriorating much faster than utility companies expected three or four years ago, said Kalsoum Abbasi, director of water transportation planning.
“We are in the middle of contingency planning for anything that happens,” she said.
In the next few days, Lake Powell, a huge man-made lake on the Colorado River that straddles the Arizona-Utah border, will drop below a record low in 2005 and only 33% of its capacity to the Bureau of Reclamation, a federal agency serving hundreds managed by reservoirs.
Last week the Bureau of Reclamation took the unprecedented step of ordering the release of 181,000 acres of water from the Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa and Navajo Reservoirs to protect power generation at Lake Powell. The water will flow out of the already polluted reservoirs by December. The move will leave the boat ramps, marina slips, and other recreational facilities of the Blue Mesa Reservoir high and dry in August, according to the National Park Service.
While the releases won’t affect Colorado Springs utilities, Colorado Springs could be affected if exceptional drought conditions persist and Lake Powell water levels continue to drop. Exceptional drought is the most severe drought recorded by the US Drought Monitor.
Lake Powell is the second largest man-made reservoir in the United States, storing 24.3 million acre-feet from the Colorado River when it is full. However, the lake is about to break a record low from 2005 and is only 33% full.
Lower Basin states, including parts of Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, rely heavily on Lake Powell for water to provide water to which they have rights to the Colorado River to meet their needs, Abbasi said.
Colorado and other upper basin states could be required to keep water in the river for these lower states in the coming years if conditions do not improve. That could mean less water for Colorado Springs, she said.
This season, the city’s water storage is okay, although earlier this month most of Colorado Springs’ water rights in the Colorado River basin were no longer prioritized, meaning the city did not have enough water to divert the water to whom she has rights, she said.
Lake Powell is the second largest man-made reservoir in the United States, storing 24.3 million acre-feet from the Colorado River when it is full. However, the lake is about to break a record low from 2005 and is only 33% full.
Colorado Springs generally loses access to the water in the basin later in the season, Abbasi said.
The city has enough storage in its reservoirs for almost the next three years, partly because a wet spring has kept residents from watering their lawns and gardens so heavily, she said. This means that the utility companies have delivered 9% less water to local residents since the beginning of the year than in the same period in 2020.
Utility company irrigation restrictions, which only allow residents to run their sprinklers three days a week, may have contributed to these savings.
With severe droughts continuing across much of the west, utilities want to accelerate some of the projects outlined in their 50-year plan, Abbasi said.
“We’re re-examining everything and trying to figure out what we can or should speed up now to respond or provide a small buffer for any impact we might see if our water rights are restricted,” she said.
For example, utilities could try to sign more water-sharing agreements with agricultural water users along the Arkansas Valley, she said.
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