FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — The canyons of eastern Utah will churn with massive amounts of water this spring — as many as 50,000 toilets are being flushed continuously at one time — in an effort to maintain power to thousands of homes across much of the western United States.
Green and flowing Colorado River might seem like a bounty of moisture in a dry desert of sandstone arches and prickly cacti, but it’s actually quite the opposite.
After the driest winter on record, officials want to raise the level of Lake Powell, a severely depleted Colorado River, this spring to keep its hydroelectric power humming. To do so, they plan to eventually release as much as a third of the water in the upper reaches of Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Green River in Wyoming and Utah, which would exceed the record 2022 increase in electricity flows.
Lake Powell, held back by the Glen Canyon Dam, supplies more than 350,000 homes with cheap and carbon-free electricity. But it comes at a rising cost elsewhere in a disputed river basin that is heavily relied on by ranchers, industry and some 40 million residential water customers.
In Flaming Gorge in southwestern Wyoming, Tony and Jane Valdez, owners of Buckboard Marina, predict water levels will drop 10 feet (3 meters) by the end of summer because of the release. This means there will always be a long drive to the waterfront to launch the boats.
“Of course we’re concerned,” Jane Valdez said. “And it will probably reach a point where we need to be more concerned.”
A balancing act to continue producing energy
If all goes according to plan — and with no relief from the weather — Flaming Gorge will drop 27 feet (8 meters) a year from now, leaving Buckboard Marina even higher and drier.
Although this is likely a temporary solution amid a long-term drought, there will also be downstream impacts, with U.S. Bureau of Reclamation water managers planning to keep more water than usual from flowing out of Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah line.
Downstream, Lake Mead near Las Vegas is similar to a four-year-old low that has revealed previously sunken boats and human remains.
Drastic measures are needed to keep the Powell waterline high enough to run power-generating turbines without letting air into the system and damaging it, federal officials said.
Hydropower is a renewable resource – when there is water
From cities and tribes to rural electric cooperatives and public utility districts, about 155 customers receive hydroelectric power from Glen Canyon Dam and other federal generators. No hydropower is 100% dependable.
Most are in disadvantaged communities and all are nonprofit organizations that pay for the cost of operating and maintaining the dam and the federal government’s investments in it.
The Federal Western Region Electricity Authority has contractual obligations to provide a certain amount of electricity to its customers. The loss of hydropower would require WAPA to find electricity elsewhere, which is likely to be more expensive and non-renewable, said Leslie James, executive director of the nonprofit Colorado River Power Distributors Association.
“If Glen Canyon hydropower is reduced to zero or less, it will have a significant impact on charging communities,” James said.
In her 48 years helping electric customers in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, James said she has never seen a situation like this.
Replacing federal hydro with market purchases has forced rate hikes at Heber Light & Power, southeast of Salt Lake City, for the past five years, with the latest increase hitting 13 percent, said Emily Brandt, the utility’s energy resources manager.
Retaining Lake Powell may bring environmental costs
Increasingly frequent droughts, evaporation, and water demand—especially to irrigate alfalfa for the cattle industry—have shrunk Lake Powell’s level to 3,526 feet (1,075 m) above sea level—only 23% of full capacity.
To continue generating power, the reservoir cannot fall below 3,490 feet (1,200 m), which is the water intake level for Glen Canyon Dam’s electric generators.
This has never happened since the 710-foot (220-meter) dam was completed in 1963 and Lake Powell gradually filled to capacity in the 1980s.
In 2022, the Bureau of Reclamation released an unprecedented 500,000 acre-feet (617 million cubic meters) of water from Flaming Gorge to recharge Lake Powell. The latest Flaming Gorge release could eventually double that amount to sustain Lake Powell’s power generation.
Meanwhile, plans to put 1.5 million acre-feet (1.85 billion cubic meters) back into Lake Powell would produce 40% less electricity at Lake Mead downstream than Hoover Dam.
Another downside: Warm water from Lake Powell’s surface could encourage the spread of smallmouth bass, an invasive fish that competes with humpback chub, a threatened native species, downstream from Glen Canyon Dam to the Colorado River. Groups including the Grand Canyon Trust urge water managers to mix in deeper, colder water to keep the Grand Canyon inhospitable to smallmouth bass.
A decades-long trend of worse droughts
The strongest releases in the coming days and weeks from Flaming Gorge will be calibrated to help native fish in the Green River, a tributary of the Colorado River.
Eventually Flaming Gorge will sink from 83% full to an estimated 59%. The 2022 releases from Flaming Gorge followed a wet winter, which temporarily eased water concerns across the region.
“We were saved by Mother Nature,” said Valdez, owner of Buckboard Marina.
A year or two won’t be enough to reverse a quarter-century-long “mega-famine” that results at least partly from human-caused climate change. But Valdez is optimistic that the wet season will return to normal.
“Hopefully we can expand to do some other things,” Valdez said. “Because it will eventually come back.”
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Pineda reported from Los Angeles.
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