A million-acre feet of water won’t save Lake Powell. But the deal is still a win
The seven Colorado River basin states have a plan to temporarily stabilize Lake Powell.
It contains some pain and not a lot of gain.
Yet no one balked. And that’s a win.
That should signal how dire the circumstances have become.
The U.S. Department of the Interior noted in an April 8 letter to the basin states that the reservoir is dangerously close to hitting 3,490 feet of elevation, a level so low that power can no longer be generated at Glen Canyon Dam and water would no longer flow through existing pipes to the nearby city of Page and an adjacent Navajo Nation community.