Officials warn Arizona lakes could see water levels drop

Officials have indicated Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir by capacity, could potentially see water levels drop low enough to halt hydropower generation by December 2026.

Forecasts indicate declining storage levels and project that the reservoir, situated on the Colorado River between Utah and Arizona, would likely fall below the minimum power pool for Glen Canyon Dam turbines within 18 months.

Sarah Porter, Director at Kyl Center for Water Policy, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss the decline of water levels.

Lake Powell is a cornerstone of the western U.S. water and energy systems, storing approximately 24 million acre-feet of water. The Glen Canyon Dam provides power to approximately 5 million people in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. This comes after the reservoir, as well as its downstream counterpart Lake Mead, hit historic lows in 2022.

“Things are starting to look worse, and, in the latest projections the United States Bureau of Reclamation provides, they show that there is a…more chance than we would like that the water levels could get so low that the Glen Canyon Dam wouldn’t produce hydropower,” Porter said.

According to Porter, the impact of the dam going out of commission would definitely be felt.

“It’s a significant generator of hydroelectric power,” Porter explained. “It is power that predominantly tribes and rural communities rely on.” Porter added that this would “create hardships for those power users.”

Hydroelectric power is a clean energy source; it does not emit carbon, so losing power from dams would “remove a form of non-carbon producing energy from the portfolios of energy providers,” Porter said.

“If we have another not-so-good winter, which is a very reasonable thing to expect, we could be in worse shape,” Porter said, “…even an average winter wouldn’t put us in a good place.”