The emergency plan to stabilize the Colorado River is no small feat.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation has never moved this much water into Lake Powell.

Nor has it ever moved this little out of it, through the Grand Canyon and into Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir.

This last-minute shake-up could drastically reduce Lake Mead’s hydropower capacity, profoundly impacting energy prices for many Arizona farmers and ranchers.

And still, according to Reclamation’s modeling, it may only be enough to limp Lake Powell into 2028, if we’re lucky.

Among the insights from those projections:

1. Upstream water isn’t enough

Reclamation has proposed releasing up to 1 million acre-feet from Flaming Gorge Reservoir, the only reservoir upstream from Lake Powell with enough water to tap.

In 2021 and 2022 — the last time Lake Powell was in these dire straits — Reclamation released an additional 624,000 acre-feet from upstream reservoirs. 

More water is needed now to move the needle. And even it is not enough on its own to stabilize Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir.

If Reclamation only moved water from Flaming Gorge and maintained the planned 7.48 million acre-feet release this year into Lake Mead, the modeling shows that Lake Powell could fall below 3,490 feet of elevation as early as August.

At that point, the only way to move millions of acre-feet of water downstream would be through river outlet tubes that were never designed to move that kind of water repeatedly.

If such a flow damaged those pipes — and there is real concern that it might — only a trickle of water would reach Lake Mead, the reservoir that provides nearly 40% of Arizona’s water.

That’s why Reclamation also has proposed releasing as little as 6 million acre-feet this year from Lake Powell. 

The lake has not released so little water since it was filled. But Reclamation says the cut is necessary to protect this critical line in the sand.

2. The ‘fix’ at Powell won’t last long

Reclamation’s proposed actions could infuse Lake Powell with as much as 2.48 million acre-feet of water.

And even so, the lake is projected to graze the 3,500-foot buffer as soon as early 2027 and dip below it as soon as early 2028.

That’s not much of a fix. But it’s also not intended to be the fix — the long-awaited plan to stabilize the lakes once the current rules expire at the end of the year.

The seven Colorado River basin states remain hopelessly gridlocked on such a plan, and Reclamation has yet to release its preferred alternative to move forward.

As one official told KJZZ, moving around water in the interim is simply “a Band-Aid solution for a gaping wound.”

3. Hydropower was already in trouble

Let’s say that Reclamation had released 7.48 million acre-feet of water downstream, as expected, this year.

The modeling suggests that Lake Mead would still have had to radically pare back hydropower production as soon as June 2027.

That’s when the lake was projected to reach 1,035 feet of elevation — the point where 12 of Mead’s 17 hydropower turbines would need to shut down to protect them from damage.

4. This accelerates Mead’s problems

Less water coming from Lake Powell accelerates the decline at Lake Mead.

The lake is now projected to dip below 1,035 feet by early fall and plummet under 1,010 feet as soon as September 2027.

5. We’re doing more and getting less

That’s the bottom line here: Even though we’re doing more than ever before to shore up Lake Powell, we’re getting less from it in return.

The costs are greater, and the benefits simply don’t last.


Joanna Allhands writes about water, land use and other issues important to the Arizona Farm Bureau. Reach her at joannaallhands@azfb.org.