Federal officials have discovered damage inside Glen Canyon Dam that could force limits on how much Colorado River water is released at low reservoir levels, raising risks the Southwest could face shortages that were previously unforeseen.
The damage was recently detected in four 8-foot-wide steel tubes — called the river outlet works — that allow water to pass through the dam in northern Arizona when Lake Powell reaches low levels. Dam managers spotted deterioration in the tubes after conducting an exercise last year that sent large flows from the dam into the Grand Canyon.
To reduce risks of additional damage, federal Bureau of Reclamation officials have determined that flows should be reduced in the event of low reservoir levels. The infrastructure problems in one of the country’s largest dams have created new complications as water managers representing seven Western states negotiate long-term plans for reducing water use to address the river’s chronic supply-demand gap and adapt to the effects of climate change.
“Because of the dam’s design, there are real structural risks under low elevations that could potentially leave stranded as much water in Lake Powell as California’s largest reservoir, Lake Shasta,” said JB Hamby, California’s Colorado River commissioner.
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Such a scenario could lead to significant unexpected cuts in water deliveries to California, Nevada, Arizona and Mexico.
“There are a couple of ways to deal with this, absent an infrastructure fix,” Hamby said in an email. “One, reduce releases to Arizona, California, Nevada, and Mexico.”
But he said that could be a violation of the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which guarantees that the states in the river’s lower basin receive a certain quantity of water.
A second option, Hamby said, would affect the four states in the river’s upper basin: Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico. He said that could include reducing water use in the upper basin states or releasing water from upstream reservoirs.
“An engineering solution is preferable to both of those options,” Hamby said.
Efforts to analyze potential fixes appear to be in the early stages.
The problems came to light at a meeting in Arizona last month. Brenda Burman, general manager of the Central Arizona Project, presented a diagram showing the dam’s eight large tubes, called penstocks, that water normally passes through, as well as the smaller outlet pipes that enable water releases at low reservoir levels.
“They have some unknown issues about how these river outlet works would perform. That’s very difficult new information to hear,” Burman said.
She said offic
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