OCR Text |
Show April-July Colorado River Runoff 68 of Normal, Lowest in Years The Bureau of Reclamation Reclama-tion reported this week that April-July snowmelt runoff lrom the Colorado River Upper Up-per Iiasin was 5.6 million acre-feet or 68 per cent of the long time average. Low runoff was recorded in the southern part of the basin ba-sin and above average run-off run-off was recorded in the northern nor-thern part. Lake Powell reached a seasonal high on June 27 at elevation 3,020 feet above mean sea level and contained contain-ed 14.2 million acre feet of live storage. This year's high was about 3 feet lower than last year's record high. The elevation 3,62n feet is 50 feet above "rated head" of the powerplant and represents repre-sents 57 per cent capacity of the reservoir. A drop to about elevation 3,601 feet during the winter is seen for Lake Powell. During Du-ring water year 1972 (October (Octo-ber 1, 1971 to Sept. 30, 1972) the runoff should to'tal about 9.4 million acre feet. Of this amount 9.1 million acre feet will have been released through Glen Canyon Dam to the Lower Basin. Lake Mead, behind Hoover Dam, is at elevation 1,155 feet above mean sea level or about four feet higher than a year ago. The reservoir reser-voir is now 66 feet below the top of the raised spillway gates at Hoover Dam and is scheduled to rise about 3 feet by the end of the summer. sum-mer. The reservoir at present pres-ent contains 17 million acre-feet acre-feet of available storage or 62 per cent of its capacity. The heavy accumulation of snowfall in Wyoming caused a 1,938,000 acre foot spring runoff, or 167 per cent of average, above Flaming Gorge Dam in northwestern Utah. About 150,000 acre fee was stored in Fontenelle Dam which has been spilling since June 13 1972. Flaming Gorge Lake reached reach-ed a record high for the season sea-son on July 28 of 6,035 feet and a live storage content of 3,540,000 acre feet. This was only 5 feet from the lake's maximum high. The level of Flaming Gorge Lake will be held near maximum through the recreation season and then drop about 10 feet prior to spring runoff. Blue Mesa Lake in western west-ern Colorado reached a seasonal seas-onal high of elevation 7,485 feet with a live storage content con-tent of 543,000 acre feet. The April-July runoff was 469,000 acre feet or about 59 per cent of the long-time average. aver-age. At present, Blue Mesa Lake is at elevation 7,483 feet and will drop to about elevation 7,450 feet during the winter months. The small amount of snow above Navajo Dam in northwestern north-western New Mexico caused the reservoir to rise to only elevation 6,024 feet with storage stor-age of 950,000 acre feet. The spring runoff was only 259,0 00 acre feet or 31 per cent of normal. With' a minimum release re-lease of 500 c.f.s. from the reservoir, it should remain near 6,024 feet until the recreation rec-reation season is over and then will drop to elevation 6,010 feet before spring. |