BRC's Fill Lake Powell Project

Lake Powell is at an historic low. So is Mead and Blue Mesa. Flaming Gorge and Navajo are far from capacity and slated to be a bit lower.
It is my understanding that LP has the capacity to store 26 M AF of water; Mead even more. And with the other attendant reservoirs at critical lows, I remain sure that LP and LM can easily store any flooding on the Colorado River.

Sure is a lovely thought.
 
Then 3588 it is. Coming with the imprimatur of JFR carries all the weight I need to hear. The NPS statement today saying that Bullfrog Exec ramp is NOT available for any launch until 3525 is a killer. Surprised comments aren’t exploding, especially with so many planning to be there Sunday May 1. We won’t see 3525 for another 2 weeks at minimum, and it’s possible we will not see the 3529 required for houseboats even over Memorial Day weekend. I wonder who will be the poor devil on duty who has to enforce these rules. Not like NPS gave much advance notice or anything.
You will be lucky to use Executive ramp at 3525, if you do make sure your tow vehicle stays on the concrete. There is only about 1' 4" - 1' 6" of water ten feet from end of concrete at 3522.77.
 
ATTENTION!!
Please look at commentary by JFRCalifornia under thread of "KSL..." in Lake Powell Issues, below.
Good stuff!!
 
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Well, flood control potential for downstream users is more a function of keeping sufficient unused capacity in the reservoir rather than maintaining a minimum level. In that sense, a lower Lake Powell is actually a good thing.

right, and that was the point of the question. when you get a whopper of a run off year like the early 80s (a few in a row!) you want the room to catch as much of that as you can in all of the reservoirs on the system. also there are the limitations on how much each reservoir can let go at a time without "wasting" the water via overflows or spillways. those would be interesting limitations to always consider in any modelling of the system.
 
I signed up. Good work sir! Wonder why 3588 since it’s such a random number. Why not 3587 or 3589?
I signed up. Good work sir! Wonder why 3588 since it’s such a random number. Why not 3587 or 3589?
Hey, this is Ben, Executive Director for BlueRibbon Coalition. We settled on this number because it left the vast majority of the main recreation facilities online. We saw value in having a number that boils down and emphasizes the recreation interests on the lake. It certainly could have been other numbers, but 3588 does allow us to define an interest around a certain lake level that is focused on recreation instead of power generation or dead pool. Of course, since this is water management in the West - and Lake Powell in particular - it gets complicated from there. If it is the case that water allocations and the factors that influence them will likely be in flux for the foreseeable future, we wanted the discipline of starting from the point of what we want. How this discipline informs what happens if lake levels drop below this level could take a variety of different shapes, but we want to be part of the discussion, and we think the discussion should be happening sooner than what is happening now. It would have been easier to have made 100 small decisions to rip off bandaids over the years, than the amputation-level treatments that are coming online as I write this. So the 3588 number is an intellectual exercise, as much as a policy position, as much as an actual level of the lake that gives access to real infrastructure and experiences. Hopefully cultivating this solution creates a space where the recreation users of the lake, who many cases area also the consumers of its water somewhere along the line, can be a productive and solutions-oriented force.
 
Well, flood control potential for downstream users is more a function of keeping sufficient unused capacity in the reservoir rather than maintaining a minimum level. In that sense, a lower Lake Powell is actually a good thing.
It would be an interesting exercise to see what would happen with current lake levels throughout the system if we had a 1983 type water year again. I'm assuming that there's quite a bit more diversion activity going on upstream - especially in Colorado, and with lake levels as low as they are everywhere else, the system could absorb 1983 right now quite well. Even with Powell at 3588, it would probably be OK. It's an interesting thought.
 
Wasn't Lake Powell much higher than 3,588 in the spring of 1983'? Seems like it would take more than a few years like 83' to fill all the reservoirs along the Colorado....
 
Wasn't Lake Powell much higher than 3,588 in the spring of 1983'? Seems like it would take more than a few years like 83' to fill all the reservoirs along the Colorado....
You are so right! Powell reached 3682 (only 18' below nominal full pool) on the first day of summer in 1982 (6/21/82), and didn't fall below 3682' at any time before the spring runoff of 1983. 3588' is almost 100' lower than the fall 1982 minimum.
 
Hey, this is Ben, Executive Director for BlueRibbon Coalition. We settled on this number because it left the vast majority of the main recreation facilities online. We saw value in having a number that boils down and emphasizes the recreation interests on the lake. It certainly could have been other numbers, but 3588 does allow us to define an interest around a certain lake level that is focused on recreation instead of power generation or dead pool. Of course, since this is water management in the West - and Lake Powell in particular - it gets complicated from there. If it is the case that water allocations and the factors that influence them will likely be in flux for the foreseeable future, we wanted the discipline of starting from the point of what we want. How this discipline informs what happens if lake levels drop below this level could take a variety of different shapes, but we want to be part of the discussion, and we think the discussion should be happening sooner than what is happening now. It would have been easier to have made 100 small decisions to rip off bandaids over the years, than the amputation-level treatments that are coming online as I write this. So the 3588 number is an intellectual exercise, as much as a policy position, as much as an actual level of the lake that gives access to real infrastructure and experiences. Hopefully cultivating this solution creates a space where the recreation users of the lake, who many cases area also the consumers of its water somewhere along the line, can be a productive and solutions-oriented force.
Welcome aboard Ben!
This is a tough group! But they do love their lake.
 
Hey, this is Ben, Executive Director for BlueRibbon Coalition. We settled on this number because it left the vast majority of the main recreation facilities online. We saw value in having a number that boils down and emphasizes the recreation interests on the lake. It certainly could have been other numbers, but 3588 does allow us to define an interest around a certain lake level that is focused on recreation instead of power generation or dead pool. Of course, since this is water management in the West - and Lake Powell in particular - it gets complicated from there. If it is the case that water allocations and the factors that influence them will likely be in flux for the foreseeable future, we wanted the discipline of starting from the point of what we want. How this discipline informs what happens if lake levels drop below this level could take a variety of different shapes, but we want to be part of the discussion, and we think the discussion should be happening sooner than what is happening now. It would have been easier to have made 100 small decisions to rip off bandaids over the years, than the amputation-level treatments that are coming online as I write this. So the 3588 number is an intellectual exercise, as much as a policy position, as much as an actual level of the lake that gives access to real infrastructure and experiences. Hopefully cultivating this solution creates a space where the recreation users of the lake, who many cases area also the consumers of its water somewhere along the line, can be a productive and solutions-oriented force.
Welcome aboard, and thanks for sharing your agenda and reasoning behind it. Hopefully you'll have some impact on the pending decisions around our lakes future.
 
It would be an interesting exercise to see what would happen with current lake levels throughout the system if we had a 1983 type water year again. I'm assuming that there's quite a bit more diversion activity going on upstream - especially in Colorado, and with lake levels as low as they are everywhere else, the system could absorb 1983 right now quite well. Even with Powell at 3588, it would probably be OK. It's an interesting thought.
Welcome to the forum, Ben!

It is an interesting thought exercise. First, consider that the collective capacity of Lake Powell, Mead and all the other reservoirs in the system is something on the order of 57 maf. That is a gigantic capacity. But if we turn the wayback machine 39 years to May 4, 1983, here was the remaining capacity in the three largest reservoirs on that date:

Mead - 1.3 maf
Powell - 2.0 maf
Flaming Gorge - 0.5 maf

On that day, Powell was 13 feet below full, and Mead was 9 feet below full.

On April 1, Powell was already at 3685. On May 4, it was up to 3687.

That's the kind of situation that presents a potentially unmanageable flood hazard if there's a giant spring runoff. And of course, that's exactly what happened. Focusing on Powell, inflow to the lake from May 1-July 31 that year was 12.3 maf!! An entire typical annual flow in three months! Peak inflow reached 122,000 cfs on July 1, which is the equivalent of 243,000 af--in one day!! Of course, you can see there was no capacity for that kind of inflow, and so the releases through the dam in that period had to also be gigantic, and even then they could almost not keep up. In those three months, BOR released 7.9 maf through Glen Canyon Dam. That means an average of about 44,000 cfs every day for 3 months. Even then, you can see the math didn't work in terms of flood control--net gain in those three months was 4.4 maf. And Powell only had the capacity on May 1 for 2.0 maf. So that excess either had to spill over the dam and create real downstream havoc, or they had to take extraordinary measures, and that's what they did. They raised the dam 10 feet with plywood, and somehow it held, with 2 feet to spare. As close a call as it gets. Because while the lake was seeing an inflow greater than 100,000 cfs from June 26-July 4, BOR was cranking the releases at full capacity just to try to stave off disaster. Daily releases through the dam during that time ranged from 133-183,000 cfs! But any less, and the dam was in jeopardy.

Meanwhile, downstream at Lake Mead, inflow was picking up, peaking at 92,000 cfs on July 1. Ultimately, Lake Mead topped out at just under 1225 on July 24, which is essentially 5 feet above full, and just below the lip of Hoover Dam.

That's as close as it gets.

And then came 1984.

That was essentially a carbon copy of 1983, but that year the BOR was ready for it. Powell was lower going into spring, for one thing. It stood at 3674 on April 1, or 11 feet lower than on that date in 1983. That provided the cushion needed to handle any sort of huge inflow. And inflow it did. The main difference this time is that the giant inflows occurred earlier--the end of May instead of the end of June. But they were even larger! Inflows exceeded 100,000 cfs from May 23 to June 5. Fortunately, BOR learned its lesson from 1983 and already anticipated that kind of flow, so they released an average of 45,000 cfs after May 9, compared to about half that outflow the year before in the same timeframe. That allowed for a more controlled situation than in 1983, and made all the difference. The lake peaked at 3702 on July 4.

So back to the original question. The dams work great for flood control, provided there's enough remaining unused capacity. And even in 1983 and 1984, when the reservoirs were already nearly full in April, there was just barely enough remaining capacity to handle the largest inflow events since the reservoirs were constructed.

So any sort of huge inflow when the lakes are as low as they are today is really no problem to handle for downstream flood control. Ideally, you'd have somewhere from 10-15 maf capacity remaining in the system for flood control, which would allow for any sort of sustained inflow to be handled. In spring 1983, the entire system only had about 4 maf before the big runoff. Not enough.

At 3588, Powell would have about 14 maf of remaining unused capacity to absorb a flood. I'd say that's a more-than-sufficent built-in safety factor.
 
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does anyone know how much lake Powell would rise at this level if 5 feet of water were let out of flaming gorge?
A 5 foot drop in Flaming Gorge would take a release of just under 0.2 maf. If you add all that water to Lake Powell right now, it would raise the lake by about 3 feet.
 
This just came out today, feel free to move it to a more appropriate thread, if need be...interesting they say 16 feet:

The bureau said it would decrease Glen Canyon Dam’s annual release volume from 7.48 million acre-feet to 7 million. As a result, about 480 thousand acre-feet will remain in the lake. This will bring up Lake Powell to nearly one million acre-feet over the next 12 months and increase elevation by 16 feet, according to the bureau.

 
That was essentially a carbon copy of 1983, but that year the BOR was ready for it. Powell was lower going into spring, for one thing. It stood at 3674 on April 1, or 11 feet lower than on that date in 1983. That provided the cushion needed to handle any sort of huge inflow. And inflow it did. The main difference this time is that the giant inflows occurred earlier--the end of May instead of the end of June. But they were even larger! Inflows exceeded 100,000 cfs from May 23 to June 5. Fortunately, BOR learned its lesson from 1983 and already anticipated that kind of flow, so they released an average of 45,000 cfs after May 9, compared to about half that outflow the year before in the same timeframe. That allowed for a more controlled situation than in 1983, and made all the difference. The lake peaked at 3702 on July 4.
As you know already, BOR did not have the option to release more water in 1983 as they did in 1984 after moderate flows through the spillway damaged them badly! For those who have not seen the YouTube video it is really interesting....
 
Hey, this is Ben, Executive Director for BlueRibbon Coalition. We settled on this number because it left the vast majority of the main recreation facilities online. We saw value in having a number that boils down and emphasizes the recreation interests on the lake. It certainly could have been other numbers, but 3588 does allow us to define an interest around a certain lake level that is focused on recreation instead of power generation or dead pool. Of course, since this is water management in the West - and Lake Powell in particular - it gets complicated from there. If it is the case that water allocations and the factors that influence them will likely be in flux for the foreseeable future, we wanted the discipline of starting from the point of what we want. How this discipline informs what happens if lake levels drop below this level could take a variety of different shapes, but we want to be part of the discussion, and we think the discussion should be happening sooner than what is happening now. It would have been easier to have made 100 small decisions to rip off bandaids over the years, than the amputation-level treatments that are coming online as I write this. So the 3588 number is an intellectual exercise, as much as a policy position, as much as an actual level of the lake that gives access to real infrastructure and experiences. Hopefully cultivating this solution creates a space where the recreation users of the lake, who many cases area also the consumers of its water somewhere along the line, can be a productive and solutions-oriented force.
Question???Does 3588 rise to the ferry ramp on the BF side?? It would on the HC side - does UDOT have any interest to promote/protect operations??? If they would use the extended Exec ramp at BF - What a zoo that would be - again!!!
 
Question???Does 3588 rise to the ferry ramp on the BF side?? It would on the HC side - does UDOT have any interest to promote/protect operations??? If they would use the extended Exec ramp at BF - What a zoo that would be - again!!!
That is an excellent question! Perhaps we need to inquire with UDOT on this.

Tiff
 
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