Lake Powell’s long decline may be on hiatus after this year’s snowy winter, but activists still are raising concerns that climate change could render Glen Canyon Dam inoperable.
This time, they are taking their concerns to court, asking a federal judge to invalidate the federal Bureau of Reclamation’s 20-year operating plan for the towering dam that impounds the lake because it fails to account for shrinking flows on the Colorado River and “conceals” the risks that trend poses for the 40 million people who rely on the river for water.
“Precipitation in North America is now coming more in the form of rain than it is snowpack, but our entire water-delivery system, especially for almost every community in the western United States is premised on having a snowpack, and the snowpack will melt, and there’ll be water available for the summer months,” said Dan Beard, former commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation.