Under the Colorado River Compact, the major river is divided between upper basin states and lower basin states.<\/p>\n
Upper basin states, including Colorado, are obligated to deliver 75 million acre-feet of water into Lake Powell on a rolling 10-year average.<\/p>\n
So far, those obligations are being met. But mountain snowpack depended on to fill the Colorado River has been below average over the past decade, creating two potential scenarios never before seen.<\/p>\n
First, if the current trend of drier than normal winters continues, officials predict that by 2016, Lake Powell will drop below levels needed to operate the hydro-electric power plant at Glen Canyon dam.<\/p>\n
The power is depended on by 5.8 million residential customers and generates critical funding for maintenance of federal water projects, including a recent $4 million renovation of McPhee reservoir\u2019s pumping plants.<\/p>\n
Second, if Lake Powell doesn\u2019t receive its legal water share needed for power generation, upper basin storage reservoirs would have to make up the difference under the compact.<\/p>\n
Lake Powell has only filled three times in the last in 14 years, and consistently hovers around 50 percent. If it drops much lower, it would trigger a \u201ccompact call on upper basins, causing immediate problems,\u201d said Mike Preston, president of the Southwest Basin Roundtable, a group looking for solutions to conserve water.<\/p>\n
In a compact call, three storage facilities would be tapped to fulfill Lake Powell\u2019s share of the Colorado River Basin: Flaming Gorge reservoir in Wyoming, Blue Mesa reservoir near Gunnison, and Navajo Reservoir in New Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are designed specifically to store water for delivery to Powell to satisfy the compact,\u201d Preston said.<\/p>\n
Another ripple is that Colorado\u2019s Front Range is looking to tap Blue Mesa and Flaming Gorge reservoirs, via transmountain diversions, to satisfy increasing water demands.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would diminish what is left for lower-basin compact compliance,\u201d Preston said.<\/p>\n