Representatives from the federal government, the seven states that share the Colorado River, and those with an interest in the river’s management, will convene this week in Las Vegas for the annual meeting of the Colorado River Water Users Association.
At the top of the agenda should be a discussion on how to operate Glen Canyon Dam safely as its levels drop and its draw works degrade.
Another issue that needs to be addressed is how to restore and nuture the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, whose habitats were feared lost when they were inundated by the Colorado River as Glen Canyon Dam was built.
The meeting occurs amidst negotiations to develop new guidelines for managing the river, including the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell. The existing guidelines expire in 2026. The negotiators face major challenges, including how to allocate a dwindling supply of water, and how to protect resources in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (GCNRA), and Grand Canyon National Park.
The U.S. Department of Interior (DOI), which manages Lake Powell and Lake Mead, estimates that Lake Powell, which was created when Glen Canyon Dam (GCD) impounded the Colorado, could drop low enough by next October to preclude the dam from generating hydroelectric power and remain there through late spring 2027.
At that point, all water would have to be released through the dam’s four river outlet works. Previous sustained use of them degraded their
structural integrity.
After spending about $9 million, DOI determined the repairs were insufficient to prevent future damage, and issued guidance to not rely on the river outlet works as the sole means for releasing water from Lake Powell.
The lack of options for releasing water from a diminished Lake Powell creates uncertainty, increasing the risk that insufficient water will flow to the millions of people, farmers, and ranchers who depend on it in the Lower Basin states of Arizona, Nevada and California. The Colorado River Basin representatives from those states recognize this threat, and requested that DOI consider structural modifications to GCD that would allow water to flow around or through the dam to ensure legal obligations are met.
As Lake Powell has retreated, about 100,000 acres of GCNRA are no longer submerged. The sediment-filled, denuded landscape of the formerly flooded sections of the Colorado, San Juan, Escalante, and Dirty Devil rivers were rendered sterile temporarily by the indiscriminate drowning of all previous inhabitants. Now, riparian landscapes along the rivers and dozens of their tributaries are undergoing rapid ecological
succession with native vegetation and animals dominating the process, habitat that could enhance the survival of federally-protected endangered species, which have been documented in GCNRA.
Since its enactment, DOI has ignored the intent of the 1992 Grand Canyon Protection Act to protect GCNRA and mitigate adverse impacts to it from the operation of GCD. Despite the law’s explicit requirement, all environmental impact analyses have been restricted to the small portion of GCNRA that occupies a narrow corridor extending 15-miles below GCD to where the river enters Grand Canyon National Park.10 The agency has disregarded the dam’s impacts on about 95% of GCNRA’s 1.25 million acres, which extends upstream from the dam for nearly 300 miles cumulatively on the Colorado River and its tributaries. Like a defective gene inserted into DOI’s bureaucratic DNA, this omission became a self-replicating, unaltered pattern of neglect.
The process for adopting the post-2026 guidelines for operating Lake Powell and Lake Mead presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address imminent water supply risks, in the context of a hotter and drier Colorado River Basin. DOI should begin planning immediately for structural modifications to GCD that will ensure water can move safely around or through it under prolonged low-reservoir conditions, which could avoid potentially devastating supply disruptions, ecological damage, and an endless cascade of costly litigation about how to allocate a diminishing resource.
The agency must also thoroughly evaluate how GCD can be operated to protect all of GCNRA. It should develop options to promote a thriving Glen Canyon ecosystem, which was feared lost forever. It’s resurgence deserves to be venerated and nurtured.
Ron Rudolph was the assistant executive director of Friends of the Earth, and vice president in some of the largest Colorado-based architect/engineering companies, including MWH Global and CH2M Hill.
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