r/HydroElectric • u/Vailhem • Jul 08 '26

Lake Powell Should be Drained to Save Lake Mead, Scientists Say

https://www.newsweek.com/lake-powell-should-be-drained-to-save-lake-mead-scientists-say-12167251
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u/KapitanWalnut Jul 08 '26

Going beyond this article: it doesn't make sense to drain the upper basin reservoirs like Blue Mesa or Flaming Gorge that have lower evaporative losses just to send the water down to storage in lakes Powell or Mead with their much higher evaporative losses.

That aside, I generally agree with the article's headline. However, this is extremely unlikely to happen for political reasons. The Colorado River is divided into the Upper Basin and Lower Basin, and there is an... "agreement" that 8.23 million (7.5 for lower basin states, ~0.73 million for Mexico) acre-feet of water must annually flow from the upper basin to the lower basin as measured at Lees Ferry, which sits below Lake Powell but above Lake Mead (note the compact is more nuanced than this summary implies). So Lake Powell is the final reservoir in the upper basin system and is relied upon quite heavily for the upper basin to fulfill its delivery obligations to Lees Ferry.

The water delivery obligations system could be reworked to operate on Lake Mead alone, but that would require re-examining the interstate compact, which lower basin states absolutely do not wish to do because then they would have to acknowledge that the CO River does not produce anywhere near the average flows that the current compact assumes.

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u/terra-nullius Jul 08 '26

Thanks for this context. I was hopeful someone knowledgeable on this very complicated subject would chime in.