Lake Powell water levels dropping; Lake Mead rising

SALT LAKE CITY — In recent weeks, the level of Lake Powell has been dropping sharply. The agency that controls the reservoir is releasing 11 billion gallons of water each day to help bring up the level of Nevada's Lake Mead.

"That level of release hasn't occurred since the late '90s," said Richard Clayton, a hydraulic engineer for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation whose job is to oversee releases from the Glen Canyon Dam.

Lake Powell's water levels always drop this time of year, but the releases now are signinficantly more than usual and have triggered controversy.

But the bureau has a message for boaters who worry Lake Powell might drop too far: "Don't worry. Be happy." The releases are prompted by expectations of the best spring runoff in more than a decade. Bureau experts predict, but can't guarantee, that Lake Powell will eventually rise higher this summer than it did last year.

The additional water is being released through turbines that generate electricity at the 710-foot-high dam near Page, Ariz. The water flows down the Colorado River, through the Grand Canyon, to Lake Mead near Las Vegas.

In recent weeks, Lake Powell has dropped more than 13 feet, while Lake Mead has been going up, climbing about 10 feet since early November. From a Nevada perspective, that's good news. For a full decade, the big reservoir behind Hoover Dam has taken a battering from the region's long-term drought. Lake Mead is currently about 42 percent full and its surface area has shrunk drastically. Lake Powell currently stands about 57 percent full.

This year, a new agreement reached by the seven states on the Colorado River will likely require additional releases from Lake Powell to Lake Mead. If spring runoff is high enough to trigger the so-called "equalization" agreement, it will require releases from Lake Powell sufficient to bring Lake Mead up to an elevation of 1,105 feet above sea level, according to Clayton. It currently stands at about 1,091 feet.

"If we wait until April and don't make appropriate changes to operations now," Clayton said, "we won't have enough time to release the required volume by the end of the water year."

The good news for Lake Powell boaters is that the bureau projects much better than average snowpack and healthy runoff. "This year we anticipate that Lake Powell will increase by 10 feet over what it was last summer," Clayton said. "And Lake Mead stands to increase by about 15 feet over what it was last summer."