Wyoming’s top water managers are warning that a significant drawdown of Flaming Gorge Reservoir this spring is likely imminent due to low snowpack and generally dry conditions throughout the seven-state Colorado River Basin region.
Wyoming is a headwaters of the Colorado River system, mostly via the Green River, which feeds Flaming Gorge.
As of Jan. 8, snow cover across the West was at its lowest since 2001, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Rain instead of snow throughout much of the region so far this winter portends a scant end-of-winter “water bank” vital to the river system when snow begins to melt in the spring, the agency noted. NOAA’s Jan. 14 update for the region indicated, “Snow drought has expanded and/or intensified across the Sierra Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and southwest Colorado.”
“The ground is pretty dry out there and so we’re not incredibly optimistic about what the runoff is going to look like, even if we do have good snowpack” in the coming months, said Senior Assistant Attorney General Chris Brown, who serves as counsel to the Wyoming State Engineer’s Office.
Flaming Gorge, which straddles the Wyoming-Utah border, is one of the key reservoirs in the Colorado River system that water managers turn to for extra releases when there’s a projected shortage — primarily to ensure operational water levels at Lake Powell. It’s a function of the Drought Response Operations Agreement among the basin states, multiple tribes and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The DROA and other binding agreements among Colorado River stakeholders have been the subject of a years-long negotiation with a fast-approaching deadline to renew.
For now, water managers are still tied to the current drought response plan, which regards Flaming Gorge as among “low-hanging fruit” to help meet downstream needs during exceptionally dry conditions, Brown explained Friday at a meeting of the Wyoming Colorado River Advisory Committee. Because of the widespread extent of “snow drought” so far this season, Brown said, Flaming Gorge stands as a primary spigot among several other backup reservoirs to supplement Lake Powell, which straddles the Arizona-Utah border.
“So if we do need to do a DROA release this year, likely most of it — if not all of it — will come from Flaming Gorge,” Brown said. “By April, we will have a much better handle on what the water supply conditions are for the year. Then, if we do have a release, it will [begin] in May.”
The Bureau of Reclamation began cutting back on releases from Lake Powell in December, anticipating poor spring inflows, an agency spokesperson told WyoFile. Water managers could also tap other backup reservoirs — Blue Mesa in Colorado and Navajo in New Mexico — to help supplement Lake Powell, according to the Wyoming State Engineer’s Office. But for now, Flaming Gorge remains the primary target.
Though it’s too early to know how much extra water might be released from Flaming Gorge, Brown reminded the committee of a 2022 order that called for an extra 500,000 acre-feet to help ensure that water levels downstream at Lake Powell didn’t drop low enough to threaten hydroelectric power generation at Glen Canyon Dam. An estimated 463,000 acre-feet of extra water was released before officials suspended the order, diminishing the reservoir to an estimated 72% of capacity.
“It’s a very difficult situation for winter grazing. This is having a very serious effect. If you think of where the water comes from, for the livestock out there, it’s from snow. There’s no snow out there.”
John Hay III, Rock Springs Grazing Association
“The conditions this year are very similar to the conditions we experienced in 2022,” State Engineer Brandon Gebhart told WyoFile.
Some 40 million people throughout the southwestern United States and Mexico rely on the Colorado River Basin system. As a headwaters state, Wyoming is enmeshed in a 1922 compact that acknowledges a shared reliance on the river system and ever-changing legal obligations on how to divvy up its benefits and shortfalls.
The “aridification” of the West, driven by human-caused climate change, has complicated and intensified an often fraught relationship among Colorado River stakeholders — including some who say expectations placed on the system long ago were overly ambitious and, in light of climate change, nearly impossible to meet in the near future.
To underscore the severity of the situation, Brown noted to a legislative panel recently that, when the 1922 compact was signed, it centered on an assumed average annual flow of 18 million acre-feet through Lees Ferry in Arizona — essentially the river system’s key pulse. Over the past eight years, the average natural flow at Lees Ferry has been 11.4 million acre-feet.
“And so just the magnitude of that reduction in the hydrology has, I think, convinced everybody that it’s all-hands-on-deck.”
For now, agricultural producers in southwest Wyoming are closely watching the Colorado River negotiations, while dealing with an exceptionally dry winter. Exacerbated by a dry summer, ranchers are scrambling for supplemental feed, and some are hauling water for livestock, according to Rock Springs Grazing Association President John Hay III.
“It’s a very difficult situation for winter grazing,” Hay told WyoFile. “This is having a very serious effect. If you think of where the water comes from, for the livestock out there, it’s from snow. There’s no snow out there.
“I think you’re looking at a more serious situation this year than you have in the past,” Hay continued, adding that extra releases from Flaming Gorge are fairly common. He wouldn’t hazard a guess about how much extra water might be released this year, however. “This is going to be a very serious situation coming up if Mother Nature doesn’t get over her anger, or whatever.”
What it means for Wyoming
Though Flaming Gorge Reservoir’s primary purpose, since the dam’s construction in 1962, is to serve as an insurance-policy spigot of sorts, the massive body of water has become integral to the economy and culture of southwest Wyoming. It draws tens of thousands of visitors each year — some for the boating, camping and views of red sandstone desert features towering over the water, and others for the kokanee salmon and trophy-sized lake trout.
The Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area is a hotspot for wildlife and birdwatching. The annual Burbot Bash icefishing event — which encourages anglers to “Catch the Ugliest Fish in the West” — is another revenue-injecting draw to the region.
This year’s bash was cancelled, however, “due to safety concerns related to poor ice and projected winds,” the Wyoming Game and Fish Department said in a statement earlier this month. Perhaps another indicator of an often fickle and, according to the scientific community, larger climate trend for Wyoming and the Colorado River region, such realities underscore an already intense and difficult negotiation to reset plans for how to manage water in the future.
At stake are agricultural and economic matters far from Flaming Gorge.
Wyoming at the negotiating table
Beyond fishing for burbot, climate trends and a bad start to the snow season, Wyoming water officials are steeped in last-minute negotiations to settle on a “basin states alternative” to submit to the federal government.
It’s an effort that began years ago, spurred by an understanding that legal protocols for dealing with shortages in the Colorado River system will expire at the end of this year. For its part, Wyoming is an upper-Colorado River Basin state, along with Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. The downstream, lower-basin contingent includes California, Arizona, Nevada and a portion of New Mexico.
The Bureau of Reclamation is the primary federal authority involved and on Friday, it published its draft environmental impact statement regarding “Post-2026 Operational Guidelines and Strategies for Lake Powell and Lake Mead.” The statement outlines how to maintain Lake Powell, which is integral to the viability of Lake Mead (spanning Nevada and Arizona), the two largest water-storage systems in the Colorado River Basin.
The two reservoirs increasingly flirt with inoperative water levels in the face of climate change.
All along, basin states and other direct interests have preferred a stakeholders’ agreement over a federal mandate, according to Brown and Gebhart.
While a difficult task to deliver, Brown and Gebhart assured members of Wyoming’s Colorado River advisory group that they’re confident a basin states agreement will come to fruition.
“Wyoming’s focus and push has always been, and continues to be, trying to figure out a way to work with our partner states to figure out a solution that doesn’t put us into conflict,” Brown said.
The Bureau of Reclamation’s draft plan lays out several alternatives for managing Colorado River Basin reservoirs, but the agency didn’t choose a preferred option, leaving room for states to settle on a plan. Federal officials, however, are prepared to move forward with their own plan if the states do not come to an agreement.
“The river and the 40 million people who depend on it cannot wait. In the face of an ongoing severe drought, inaction is not an option,” Department of Interior Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Andrea Travnicek said in a prepared statement.
Eventually there will be no water held back at Flaming gorge. Loke Powell and Mead will get to “dead pool” levels and every drop will be let downstream for national security reasons.
This is where WyoFile loses credibility:
“The “aridification” of the West, driven by human-caused climate change, has complicated and intensified…….”
I’m not arguing that humans have not impacted the climate – frankly, how could we not – but stating that climate change is driven by humans implies humans are solely responsible. Ask any reputable scientist and they will tell you that climate change is a complex issue driven by many factors including human impacts. The climate is always shifting, always has, always will. Humans certainly impact the shift – but to imply that situation with Flaming Gorge/Lake Powell is “driven by human-caused climate change” without acknowledge of the other factors is not journalism but borders on propaganda. Real journalism lays out the facts and allows the reader to decide, not tell the reader the issue is because of human driven climate change or imply it is the sole reason.
Maybe those down river need stop using so much water – the climate in the west has never been conducive to golf courses, green parks, man made lakes and other water features. Its time that those down river start looking at how they more efficiently use their entitlement based on the ever changing climate conditions.