Lake Powell’s decline and the Colorado River disaster

LAKE POWELL, Utah — 

Muddy water whizzed previous as John Weisheit steered a motorboat upstream within the Colorado River. He revved the engine because the boat sped round a bend and up a riffle.

All alongside the river’s banks, large mounds of dried mud and silt rose taller than homes — sediment that settled in Lake Powell over many years and has been left uncovered by the reservoir’s retreating waters.

All of the sudden, the water turned tough round Weisheit and his 4 passengers. The rapids rose up in waves. The boat descended in a churning brown trough and hit backside, then popped up, throwing the passengers to the entrance.

“This is really gnarly,” Weisheit mentioned. “I don’t know if I’m willing to flip a boat for this.”

Weisheit mentioned he thought he knew this a part of the Colorado River, like so many different stretches the place he has guided expeditions during the last 4 many years. However this portion of the river simply upstream from Lake Powell has been reworked by the reservoir’s decline.

“I’m totally cognizant of the fact that 40 million people need this river. But unfortunately, this river can’t sustain 40 million people. And that’s the problem,” Weisheit mentioned. “We need to respect the river for what it is, and we’re not doing that.”

The signing of the Colorado River Compact a century in the past divided the water amongst seven states, however the system of allocations and rights promised much more water than the river may present.

Weisheit mentioned he has seen the water deficit mounting for years, and now the river is approaching a breaking level, its reservoirs on the lowest ranges since they have been crammed, and persevering with to fall.

“We’re backed into a corner,” Weisheit mentioned. “With or without climate change, this would still happen. Climate change just makes it worse and more severe.”

Weisheit, an environmental activist and veteran river information, mentioned he has lengthy been satisfied that the disaster would come as a result of the allocation system has left provide and demand perpetually out of steadiness. The sample of depletion has worsened because the river’s circulation has shrunk throughout 23 years of drought compounded by rising temperatures.

Weisheit mentioned he feels annoyed and offended about how the river has been “enslaved,” overallocated and mismanaged for many years.

“We’re going to be on the short end of the stick eventually. And it’s happening right now,” Weisheit mentioned. “It’s falling apart.”

After encountering the brand new rapids within the shifting sediment, Weisheit mentioned going farther upstream could possibly be harmful. He circled and headed again downstream.

“This is nothing but reservoir sediment over here,” Weisheit mentioned. “It’s totally different. I’m shocked.”

Cliffs of dried reservoir silt towered over the river. On prime of those formations, tumbleweeds sprouted in patches. From time to time, a chunk of the mud cliffs broke off and fell into the river like a collapsing glacier, releasing a puff of mud.

Lake Powell has shimmered between crimson canyon partitions since Glen Canyon Dam was accomplished within the Sixties. However during the last two years, the reservoir’s stage has dropped greater than 50 toes. Its floor now sits lower than 35 toes away from a degree the place the dam would not generate energy.

The federal managers of Glen Canyon Dam are attempting to spice up the reservoir by decreasing the quantity of water they launch downstream till the spring runoff arrives. They’ve warned they might must additional in the reduction of water releases.

If the reservoir retains dropping past a essential threshold, the primary intakes would not be usable and water would circulation solely by means of the dam’s decrease bypass tubes, which have lowered capability. That would result in much less water passing downstream, shrinking the river’s circulation within the Grand Canyon and accelerating the decline of Lake Mead towards “dead pool” — the purpose at which water would not cross by means of Hoover Dam to Arizona, California and Mexico.

The hazard of reaching a catastrophic situation by which the water runs out is prompting pressing discussions amongst public officers about find out how to reply. Regardless of widespread settlement on the necessity to reduce water use, representatives of states and water companies have but to agree on how the reductions needs to be divided.

Weisheit mentioned he blames the area’s water managers, who years in the past understood the hole between provide and demand however largely ignored warnings from scientists and didn’t steadiness the water funds. Weisheit has written that it’s time to alter the “baseline misinformation in the 1922 Colorado River Compact to reflect reality.” He says the reductions would have been far more manageable if had they been applied sooner.

“Nobody did anything to prevent this day of reckoning from coming,” he mentioned. “So the imbalance is going to sink the ship.

“This is a system that doesn’t work,” he mentioned.

Weisheit, 68, lives in Moab, Utah, and has spent his life boating and exploring the river. He’s co-founder of the group Residing Rivers and works with the Waterkeeper Alliance, serving because the Colorado Riverkeeper, the group’s one consultant within the watershed.

Weisheit grew up in Whittier, and his household later moved to Phoenix. His father labored for Basic Electrical and commonly took the household to go to energy crops and dams.

As a boy, Weisheit began water-skiing on Lake Havasu. He first visited Lake Powell on a household boating journey in 1972, when he was 18, and loved snowboarding throughout the clear, blue water. The next 12 months, the lake stage rose dramatically, and when Weisheit returned, he noticed that the rising water had lined timber and historical Indigenous ruins. He noticed beavers that appeared to be looking for their drowned habitat.

“I was horrified. That’s when the light went on,” Weisheit mentioned.

His views concerning the river and the dam have been formed by his years guiding journeys on the river, together with expeditions with scientists. He and his spouse, Susette, additionally a river information, have been married on the confluence of the Inexperienced and Colorado rivers.

Lately, Weisheit has condemned the established order water administration system, filed lawsuits towards the federal government, opposed Utah’s plans for a brand new 140-mile water pipeline to take extra from the river, and argued that Glen Canyon Dam needs to be decommissioned to revive the river to a extra pure state.

Weisheit factors out that from the start, some well-informed folks have been satisfied that constructing Glen Canyon Dam was a mistake, and that there wasn’t sufficient water to satisfy all of the calls for. He cites the 1954 congressional testimony of California water lawyer Northcutt Ely opposing the dam.

Certainly one of Weisheit’s mentors was David Brower, the late chief of the Sierra Membership who lamented dropping a “living canyon of incredible, haunting beauty,” and who provided him recommendation about find out how to push for change by means of activism.

Generally on river journeys, Weisheit has reread the writer Edward Abbey’s condemnations of the dam and his account of cruising by means of a pristine Glen Canyon earlier than it was flooded. Abbey known as it “an Eden, a portion of the earth’s original paradise.”

After an evening tenting by the river, Weisheit guided the boat downstream whereas the canyon partitions glowed crimson within the rising solar. Pelicans soared previous and landed on a sandbar.

When the boat reached a degree the place the present disappeared, the water’s coloration modified from brown to translucent inexperienced. A thick mat of driftwood floated within the nonetheless water of Lake Powell.

Close by, water skiers skimmed previous. Houseboats motored slowly beside the towering canyon partitions.

Because the reservoir has declined, parts of Glen Canyon that have been underwater for many years are reemerging.

In a single aspect canyon, the naked, pale limbs of long-drowned cottonwood timber protrude from the water like freshly unearthed fossils.

In different slender canyons, water seeps from the rock partitions, nourishing pure “hanging gardens” of ferns and orchids.

“Ecologically, it’s a vibrant river. It’s one of the most vibrant I’ve ever seen,” Weisheit mentioned. “In my lifetime, I have seen this change. And that’s profound because nature doesn’t work that quick, unless there’s something goofy.”

Weisheit drove to Hite Overlook and stood on a bluff overlooking part of the reservoir that has dried up. The place a marina as soon as floated, a silt-clogged canyon flooring spreads out alongside the river.

He mentioned he thinks the more and more sediment-filled reservoir represents a failed try at controlling nature, and an issue that can convey main prices — identical to the perpetual overuse of water.

A latest federal survey discovered Lake Powell has misplaced practically 6.8% of its water-storing capability as a result of accumulation of sediments within the reservoir backside for the reason that Sixties. Weisheit mentioned he worries not solely concerning the lack of a plan to take away sediment, but in addition the dangers the dam would face in a flood, which could possibly be bigger than the one which crammed the reservoir to the brim in 1983.

As a part of the federal authorities’s newly launched strategy of revising the principles for coping with shortages, Weisheit and different activists have introduced a listing of suggestions. They’ve mentioned obligatory water cuts are vital and that water deliveries needs to be adjusted to match the river’s circulation. They’ve additionally urged the Bureau of Reclamation to look past the present drought and put together for extra intense floods, saying in a letter that within the coming many years, “adaptation to global warming must include the impacts of large precipitation events.”

“All our planning is short-sighted, and it’s not sustainable and it’s not resilient,” Weisheit mentioned. “It should be changed, but they’re reluctant to change.”

On a close-by stretch of river that was underwater in Lake Powell, whitewater rafters stepped out of boats onto a steep financial institution of dried silt.

Guides hauled a raft uphill utilizing a rope tied to a truck, pushing the boat by rolling it on tubes. The guides have began calling the thick layer of gathered sediment the Dominy Formation, after Floyd Dominy, the flamboyant Bureau of Reclamation commissioner who championed the dam’s building.

Giant cracks had fashioned within the filth, and the guides mentioned they didn’t know the way for much longer the financial institution may maintain earlier than it collapsed.

“This just looks so unsafe,” Weisheit mentioned, inspecting a gaping crack within the floor.

The following morning, Weisheit put within the boat at Lees Ferry and headed upstream towards Glen Canyon Dam. As a result of the dam traps silt, the river downstream from it flows clear and inexperienced.

“It’s sad because I know this is not what the Colorado River is supposed to look like,” Weisheit mentioned. “Nature would brown this up a bit and put some driftwood in it, lots of sand.”

He mentioned he’s sure that the river will return to its pure state sometime. The longer the dam stays operational, he mentioned, the harder restoration might be.

Final 12 months, Weisheit and different environmentalists introduced a contest, inviting engineers and engineering college students to submit proposals for reengineering Glen Canyon Dam and rewilding the river. That may match with Weisheit’s long-standing proposal for decommissioning the dam. Different activists have for years supported the same proposal known as Fill Mead First, which might regularly drain Lake Powell and retailer the water downstream in Lake Mead.

“I want a different system. Because this is a system that comes to an end. This is not a forever system,” Weisheit mentioned. “It should be removed incrementally, and there should be a plan.”

His stance is squarely at odds with the predominant place of water administration officers, who say the dam continues to serve its functions of storing water, producing energy and offering flood safety. However Weisheit mentioned the dropping water ranges have revealed the dam’s limitations.

“It works until it doesn’t,” he mentioned. “Now we know it’s a failure.”

Weisheit motored near the dam. He reduce the engines and let the boat drift to a thicket on the financial institution. He regarded up on the dam’s towering concrete face with an expression of disgust.

“I see vanity, hubris. I see arrogance,” Weisheit mentioned. “We’re not respecting nature. We’re not. It has limits.”