Reclamation Orders Flaming Gorge Releases to Boost Lake Powell

Federal water managers have initiated emergency measures to prevent a critical drop in Lake Powell's water levels, ordering the release of up to one million acre-feet from the Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Utah and Wyoming, while reducing downstream flows from the Colorado River's upper basin. The actions, announced by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, aim to safeguard hydropower generation and water deliveries for millions across the American West amid record-low snowpack and intensifying drought conditions.

The Colorado River storage system, which supplies water to more than 40 million people and irrigates over five million acres of farmland in seven states and parts of Mexico, currently stands at about 36 percent of capacity. Prolonged drought, combined with the smallest snowpack on record in the Rocky Mountains and an unusually early melt triggered by high March temperatures, has heightened risks to infrastructure like Glen Canyon Dam. Without intervention, officials said, Lake Powell could fall below 3,490 feet by August, limiting power production through its turbines and complicating water releases to Lake Mead downstream.

Under the plan, Reclamation will draw between 660,000...