| OCR Text |
Show Amotion Announces Colo, iver 0;eraiiens Plans for Year ... .Ill iU el '.Ige I''.' - iti'Vlt in the llii v s;,.r, the mii t'.uv "-v "-v ' K!h I uW Powe!! ' -lk' M'Mil ill-.' 'MHvt.Hl ,v 10 '' li!i.-r nest 1"'' !l- !!'' nuniuumis K'.ulud ilui-mj. the u.i- vem- (Muled Sept. IM, 1!)7, 'lie tVpnrtment el' Hi,, inu,,-! '" i''iiti'd this wirk. 'Hie Department made put), lie iidvaiuv information on llie I'pi'ratiniis plans for the IVInrade. Kiver Sturae l'ro-jet l'ro-jet and hf Lower ruloradn liiver, piep;nvd by the lhir-ean lhir-ean of lu'clamalion's lu'inns 3 and 4. The complete operations opera-tions report required by the Colorado Hiver Basin ' inl. jeet Act will be issued about Jan. 1, 11)72. "Willi an average rnnolf of B 3 million acre-l'eet, Lais j l'owell in Arizona and Utah Is scheduliHl to attain a ree-ord ree-ord live water storage of 13 G million acre feet," said Commissioner Com-missioner of Reclamation Kills Ki-lls L Armstrong. "To deliver the required 73 million acre-feet to the Lower Rasin in the l'.W3-72 decade as provided by tile Colorado River Compact, the total release from Lake row-ell row-ell during; the water year must be at least 9 million acre feet. "Rower generation from this release, larger than the R.G million acre fi-et released in the 1170 T 1 water year, can easily be marketed. "A total of 8 million acre-feet acre-feet is scheduled to be released re-leased from Lake Mead, behind be-hind llimver Dam between Arizona and Nevada, to meet all downstream requirements." A summary of the Colorado Colo-rado River Storage Project yearly operations and forecast fore-cast follows: Precipitation in the Upper RaMii during the 1970-71 water wa-ter year recently concluded was slightly above average, w:th low runoff in the sou'h-eni sou'h-eni portion being compensated compensat-ed by an alwvo average runoff run-off in the north. The April-July April-July yield was 8.4 million acre-feet, ;ibout 101 percent the long-time average for trie spring runoff. For the wl'.ole water year, the runoif w.is 12.3 million acre-feet. Of this amount. 8f.0O.00O acre-feet acre-feet was released to the Lower Lo-wer R;isin. At the end of the water year. Lake Powell had live storage ef 13.6 million acre-feet. acre-feet. This was 1.6 million acre-feet more than was stored in the lake a year earlier. The high point was reached on July 11 when Lake Powell contained 14.5 million mil-lion acre-feet of live storage and had a surface elevation level of 3.622 feet. This was a record high, being 52 feet above rated head of the pow-erplant pow-erplant and 58 per cent of live capacity of the reservoir. Assuming an average 192 April July runoff, the resulting result-ing inflow to Lake Powell of 8.3 million acre-feet should cause the lake to rise to ele-vaiion ele-vaiion 3.C32 feet with a live storage content of 15.6 million nere-fect. Flaming Gorge Reservoir level was somewhat lower at the beginning of the year but' rose rapidly with the good runoff in the Green River in Wyoming and Utah. By May of 1971, Flaming Gorge Lake reached elevation 5,990 fee!, and all boat ramps could be used during the recreation season. The lake eventually reached elevation 6,022 feet on August 4. with a live storage content of 3,046.000 acre ftct. The level of Flam-ing Flam-ing Gorge Lake will drop only sliglr.ly during the winter win-ter season. The levels of both Navajo Reservoir in New Mexico and Blue Mesa Reservoir in Colorado Colo-rado were purposely lowered in 1971 to construct boat ramps. At the end of the water wa-ter year. Blue Mesa Reservoir Reser-voir contained 532,000 acre-fett, acre-fett, and will be lowered slightly during the winter. Some ice jamming and overflow ov-erflow occurred along the Gunnison River above Blue Mesa Reservoir during the winter of 1970-71. The three lowest ranches that were being be-ing flooded each winter by ice have now been purchased in fee by the United States. Morrow Point Reservoir in Colorado was essentially kept full during the water year, but occasional spills were necessary over the 360,-foot 360,-foot free-fall spillway. Because Be-cause of the extensive potential poten-tial damage that could be caused by falling ice accumulating accum-ulating from seepage around the spillway gates during the winter, the spillway gates have been thoroughly sealed. Future spills will be made only under emergency conditions. condi-tions. Both generators were completed com-pleted at Morrow Point Pow-erplant Pow-erplant and are now on the line. CRSP power is marketed market-ed throughout the intermoun-tain intermoun-tain region. Revenue from the sale of this power helps to repay the costs of construction, con-struction, with the power facility fa-cility portion bearing interest. A summary of the operations opera-tions plans for the Lower Colorado Co-lorado River follows: During the water year which ended Sept. 30, 1971, the level of Lake Mead fluctuated fluc-tuated over a range of about 5 feet and ended the period at elevation 1,153 feet, a net increase of about one foot and an increase in storage of 117,000 acre-feet. This reflected re-flected the releases ifroin Lake Powell to the river above Lake Mead and releases releas-es of about 8.2 million acre-feet acre-feet from Lake Mead to meet downstream requrements for water in the United States and delivery of Treaty water to Mexico. All of this water passed through the turbines at Hoover Powerplant. During April through August Aug-ust 1971 releases from Lake Powell were sufficient to cause the level of Lake Mead gradually to rise 4.6 feet. This provided lake levels favorable favor-able to the bass spawn and-survival and-survival of the young bass. ' |
