Ongoing dry weather in the western U.S. conducive to wildfires burning in New Mexico and Arizona has also helped drop the waters of Lake Powell to a level approaching the minimum needed to operate the Glen Canyon Dam hydroelectric power plant.
美国填海局代理专员戴维·帕卢姆博（David Palumbo）在一份声明中说：“今年科罗拉多河流域经历了极其可变的条件，有创纪录的积雪一个月，其次是几周没有雪。”“这种可变的水文学和较温暖的西部地区对我们的运营产生了巨大影响，目前我们面临着迫切需要进行管理。”
Palumbo appeared before the U.S. House Appropriations Committee April 27 to make his case for the bureau’s 2023 budget proposal, which includes plans for spending on projects beyond the $1.6 billion per year through 2026 appropriated by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for water and related resources.
他说，西部的干旱没有明显迹象，他说，该局正在寻求通过多种解决方案（包括保护，储存量增加，水再利用和脱盐）来解决水问题。
“Many water users, power contractors, tribes and related communities have had to make significant sacrifices,” Palumbo said. “These situations highlight the need for immediate actions as well as thoughtful planning for on-the-ground work to make both our infrastructure and operational decisions more resilient to withstand future water resource scarcity and variability.”
Lake Powell is part of the Colorado River system and the country’s second-largest reservoir, capable of storing more than 25-million acre-ft of water at the Utah-Arizona border. As of May 1, it held less than 5.5 million acre-ft of water, and its elevation was only about 32 ft above the minimum level needed to operate the 1,320-MW power plant.
Bureau of Reclamation officials aim to keep the water level at least 35 ft above the minimum operating level, but the water level has been below the targeted buffer level since March.
为了防止水位降至发电厂的运营水平以下，该局去年从蓝色台面和火焰峡谷水库中额外释放了161,000英亩的水，去年到鲍威尔湖，并暂时减少了鲍威尔湖的每月释放，以持有从一月到四月返回350,000英亩的水。
春季径流
该局的科罗拉多州河流盆地地区总监韦恩·普兰（Wayne Pullan）表示，他希望春季径流在短期内帮助解决鲍威尔湖的赤字，因此该机构没有计划进一步采取任何行动来解决“临时蘸酱”。但是，他补充说，今年晚些时候，湖水海拔高度预计将再次低于35英尺的缓冲区，然后官员们可能采取其他行动。
Those 350,000 acre-ft of water will be released from Lake Powell to Lake Mead between June and September. But there are impacts in the meantime. As of April 25, the Southern Nevada Water Authority said the water level in Lake Mead had dropped below one of its intake valves for the first time since it began operations. As a result, the authority is using its低湖泊水平抽水站，该建筑于2020年完成。
Lake Mead's water level dropped below one of its intakes.内华达州南部水务局的照片
The authority instituted summer watering restrictions as of May 1. If water levels in Lake Mead fall too low, it warned that the Hoover Dam could no longer release water further downstream to California, Arizona and Mexico. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which imports water from the Colorado River and elsewhere to an area that includes Los Angeles, also is imposing water restrictions more severe than any in history, according to Adel Hagekhalil, district general manager.
The bureau updated itsfive-year projections2月份为鲍威尔湖和米德湖。预测，预计鲍威尔湖的水平将有23％的机会下降到2023年的发电厂的最低限度，这比预计2023年的34％赔率低下的last fall.在米德湖（Lake Mead），该局预计水位不会降至运营胡佛大坝发电厂所需的最低限度。
