Upper basin states formally approved an emergency water transfer to Lake Powell on April 23, clearing the way for Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to authorize releases as early as Friday, roughly double the 500,000 acre-feet released in a comparable 2022 emergency.
The plan, announced April 17 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation under the 2019 Drought Response Operating Agreements, calls for releasing 660,000 acre-feet to 1 million acre-feet of Flaming Gorge Reservoir between April 2026 and April 2027.
The action is accompanied by a reduction in annual releases from Lake Powell to Lake Mead of 1.48 million acre-feet (from 7.48 million acre-feet to 6.0 million acre-feet through September 2026) authorized under the 2024 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for Colorado River Short-Term Operations.
Altogether, the measures are expected to raise Lake Powell about 54 feet to an elevation of at least 3,500 feet by April 2027.
The urgency reflects the rapid deterioration of hydrological conditions. The April 2026 24-month study projects the year 2026 water inflow to Lake Powell at 3.87 million acre-feet (about 40% of average), with a projected year-end elevation of 3,483 feet.
The projected number is 7 feet below the minimum power pool of 3,490 feet, a level below which turbine generation stops, at Glen Canyon Dam.
The Upper Colorado River Commission warned April 17 that Lake Powell could approach critical elevations as early as June 2026, while recovery modeling puts that risk later in the summer without intervention.
“Given the severity of the risks facing the Colorado River system, it is imperative that we act quickly to protect a resource that supplies water to 40 million people,” said Andrea Travnicek, assistant secretary for water and science at the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum expressed his appreciation for the cooperation among the four upper basin states, adding that Interior and Reclamation “will continue to coordinate with basin states, tribes, Mexico and basin agents as we make the necessary decisions to operate and protect the system.”
The governors of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming characterized the situation in a joint statement released April 9 as “an unprecedented year on the Colorado River and will likely be one of the worst on record.”
The governors noted that Upper Basin states were already enforcing mandatory, uncompensated cuts in water rights that affected communities, tribes and local economies, and conditioned their support for the releases on assurances that all water transferred from upstream reservoirs would be fully recovered.
Wyoming Commissioner Brandon Gebhart said the approval reflected need, not preference. “We wouldn’t recommend this launch except in historically dry conditions,” he told the Colorado Sun. Chuck Cullom, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, was blunt: “It’s clear that additional action is needed at Lake Powell.”
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At the end of March, Lake Powell was at an elevation of 3,527.99 feet with 5.72 million acre-feet in storage, or about 25 percent of live capacity, according to Reclamation. Flaming Gorge was about 79% full and about 17 feet below capacity on April 23; Releases are expected to reduce it by about 35 feet, to 59% of capacity, over the next year.
The “bathtub ring” exposed along the Lake Powell shoreline marks declining reservoir levels, reflecting prolonged drought conditions that are pushing the Colorado River system toward critical operational thresholds.
Image: Adobe
System-wide storage in the Colorado River basin has fallen to about 36% of capacity. Reclamation said releases are not expected from two other Colorado River Storage Project reservoirs upstream — Blue Mesa in Colorado and Navajo in New Mexico — because of their low water levels and poor inflow forecasts.
The recovery acknowledged that reducing emissions from Lake Powell will accelerate declines in Lake Mead and could reduce Hoover Dam’s hydroelectric power generation by as much as 40 percent as early as this fall.
The financial fallout is already being felt at utilities: Emily Brandt, energy resource manager for Utah-based Heber Light & Power, told the Associated Press that the utility has raised rates 13 percent over the past five years as it replaces declining federal hydropower with market purchases.
The emergency response does not address the broader governance issue facing the basin. The 2007 interim guidelines governing coordinated operations at Glen Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam expire at the end of 2026, and the seven basin states have not reached consensus on a replacement operational framework.
Interior has said it will determine post-2026 operations this summer if no deal is reached. Arizona Water Director Tom Buschatzke noted that the emergency will not speed up those negotiations. “The fact that this is happening is not going to help us, in any way, form or form, reach a seven-state agreement,” he said, according to KJZZ.
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As ENR has reported since January, federal modeling in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Colorado River operations after 2026 shows Glen Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam operating near their physical limits in medium to dry hydrology scenarios well into the next decade.
Jenny Dumas, a water attorney for the Jicarilla Apache Nation, noted that the latest action is a short-term fix. “It’s going to take time to get those reservoirs back before we can do it again. So while we can deplete our reserves to prevent the system from collapsing this year, it means the reserves won’t be there next year,” he said, according to High Country News.
Emergency releases can postpone the point at which infrastructure modifications become unavoidable. But as Reclamation’s model shows, repeated operations near the minimum power pool narrow this window rather than eliminating it.
