Home Care In Lake Powell, UT

Adam Small, KSL NewsRadio

LAKE POWELL, Ariz. — The nation’s second-largest reservoir is in better shape than last year, however, the Lake Powell water level is still lower than it should be.

Lake Powell hit a record low of 22% capacity in early 2023 following the effects of long-term drought and downstream water use. Record snowpack shortly followed, helping the reservoir rebound to about 40% capacity.

As of Thursday, the reservoir is just 33% full.

Snow could raise Lake Powell water level

“The dry winter has not been kind to us,” said Gene Shawcroft, Utah’s Colorado River commissioner.

Lake Powell is fed by the Colorado River, beginning in Northern Colorado. Further downstream, more water sources merge with it, including the Green River.

Water released from Lake Powell through the Glen Canyon Dam travels through the Grand Canyon and Lake Mead. Then it makes its way along Arizona’s border with Nevada and California. Finally, it passes into Mexico, ending in the Gulf of California.

Shawcroft said the mountain snowpack is crucial to making up lost ground in Lake Powell. Especially as it travels through the Northern Colorado River Basin states of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.

“We don’t have a big storage reservoir sitting above us that we can just simply say, ‘we want x amount of water,’ and have it show up,” Shawcroft said. “Our snowpack is our reservoir.”

Additionally, data from the USDA’s National Water and Climate Center said the snowpack sites that contribute to the Lake Powell water level are at a combined 90% of normal as of Thursday. It is 10% below average.

However, Shawcroft said that based on the most recent estimates, the reservoir will only get about 77% of the water it normally gets in a given year in 2024.

What needs to change?

Shawcroft said they need more, ideally, atmospheric rivers, bringing large amounts of water to areas of the state that feed Lake Powell.

The period between now and April 1 is when Utah’s snowpack peaks.

Thursday’s storm will hit parts of Southern Utah. However, it might not have a big impact either.

It’s focused around Cedar City and St. George, which isn’t an area that contributes to Lake Powell. The storm was one of the largest that Southern Utah has seen all winter.

Shawcroft said there is time to turn things around. However, if it doesn’t, the continued efforts of Utahns to conserve water will always make a difference.

“When we’re in these in-between years, it is absolutely critical,” Shawcroft said. “We need to pay attention not only every year but every day.”

The lower basin states, California, Nevada, and Arizona are in shortage criteria again this year, meaning they have to cut their water use.

Big changes could also be coming to how the waters of Lake Powell and the Colorado River are managed in 2026. The current water use rules established in 2007 are set to expire at the end of 2025. Negotiations of new rules are already taking place.

Related: Lake Powell Pipeline opponents urge cancellation of the project

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ST. GEORGE — The Utah governor says he agrees with the assessment of the leaders of the Washington County Water Conservancy District that plans for a Lake Powell Pipeline should be put on the back-burner in favor of conservation and water reuse methods.

Gov. Spencer Cox made his comments in response to a question from St. George News during the Wednesday taping of the PBS Utah “Governor’s Monthly News Conference” program in Salt Lake City.

Reports by St. George News and Fox 13 have confirmed that the conservancy district, which oversees water resources in much of Southern Utah, is moving away from a proposed Lake Powell Pipeline in favor of a system to reuse existing water and conservation measures.

Officials have said the reuse of so-called gray water for agricultural uses alone could nearly double the existing water supply locally. They also said that any possibility of a Lake Powell Pipeline is now 20 years from even entering a planning stage.

The next two decades will be about water conservation and reuse projects before a pipeline is considered, and Cox said he agrees with that vision.

“I think it fits perfectly with my view of the Lake Powell Pipeline and you’ve heard me talk about this is an all-of-the-above approach, especially for Southern Utah,” Cox said. “I think it fits in a long-term horizon.”

Among the water reuse projects underway locally include the Toquer Reservoir, which broke ground last month.

Cox continues to talk about the impression that was made on him when he visited Israel in September 2022 and saw their water conservation efforts firsthand.

According to a study by Northwestern University, Israel reuses 90% of its wastewater, mainly for agricultural purposes. It also gets 70% of its water from the salty Meterterinarian Sea through a system of desalinization plants.

And while desalinization is being mainly seen as something for the coastal areas of California, Cox said desalinization might actually be an additional option for Southern Utah.

“People think, ‘Well, that’s just for the ocean.’ It’s not,” Cox said. “We have brackish water in Southern Utah that’s just never been used for drinking water. And some of these new technologies have the ability for us to really change and unlock some new water sources.”

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2023, all rights reserved.

For a while now, there have been murmurs about a group of conservationists who want to drain Lake Powell to save the Colorado River.

It’s not a plan that anyone with actual governing power has taken seriously thus far, but as water conditions in the West worsen, it’s a conversation that seems to be rising to the surface more frequently.

If this someday becomes a real plan — and to be clear, that’s still a very big IF — there will be a number of repercussions we ought to consider.

The local economy around Bullfrog — Lake Powell’s main launch point in Utah — is sure to suffer as the hospitality industry dries up, along with the economies of many small towns in the area. Beyond that, are we really ready to find what horrors lie on the lake’s floor? Are we prepared to deal with whatever we find down there?

But personally, I’m most worried about two vulnerable populations should Lake Powell become Empty Basin Powell: Utah’s hot people, and dads. (Dads can be hot, sure, but the Venn diagram overlap is not large.)

Hot people and Lake Powell are like peanut butter and jelly. Pizza and ranch. A Crunchwrap Supreme and fire sauce. They belong together.

Open Instagram anytime between May and October, and you’re sure to find at least a few photos of beautiful people posing in front of Lake Powell’s famous rusty rock and sparkling waters. “I guess my invite got lost in the mail,” you’ll think as you scroll past the beautiful people to a video of a gerbil wearing a hat.

It’s not that Lake Powell is exclusively for the hotties. But they do seem to be there quite often. Just like not all dogs are terriers but all terriers are dogs, not everyone who goes to Lake Powell is hot, but all hot people go to Lake Powell. If you get an out-of-office email reply from a hot person in Utah, you can bet $1 million that person is in Lake Powell and that the next time you see them they will be very tan (hot people don’t sunburn).

I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, but I believe the great hot exodus to the lake for one-third of the year is what keeps Utah’s population under control. If these people have nowhere to go during the summer, our streets will be overrun with attractive humans.

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But I’m even more concerned about all the Utah dads whose main personality trait is driving a boat. Not just a speedboat. A whole houseboat.

Stop anyone on the street, any street in Utah, and ask them about their most harrowing Lake Powell experience. They will have to choose from at least three because every trip to Lake Powell includes at least one near-disaster usually related to navigating a giant motorized vessel through a body of water with unknowable and varying depths, then parking said vessel with little to no training.

You don’t really know a person, or the breadth of their expletive vocabulary until you’ve witnessed them trying to plant a giant boat on a small stretch of shore. In my experience, that person is usually a dad.

This dad has to be able to bark orders, tie knots, and know what to do if (when) the houseboat becomes high-centered on a surprise patch of red rock. They need to know how to work the pumps at the marina and shift gears. It’s a stressful job, but one that builds a lot of character.

Once a dad has steered enough houseboats, narrowly averted enough aquatic disaster, and mastered the art of the anchor, he develops a wisened look in his eyes. He becomes houseboat. Houseboat becomes him.

So what will happen to the dads’ identities if we take Lake Powell away? We don’t have any other lakes or rivers or puddles large enough to fit multiple dads driving houseboats at once (though that would be fun to watch). How will they develop their sense of self?

Are we prepared for a time when our hot people overrun the streets and our dads wander aimlessly in search of an enormous boat to drive?

I don’t think we are. We need a contingency plan.

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

BULLFROG, Kane County — A Utah family involved in a boating accident last week in Lake Powell said they are thankful everyone made it out alive, even though they know the road ahead is going to be long.

Brent Limb works on houseboats at Lake Powell and last Thursday, he had just finished a job when he and his family left Halls Crossing to head home.

In the summer, his family takes a vacation at the lake while he works.

As they were making their way out, they were following GPS, which they now believe was off by a few hundred feet. Just minutes onto the lake, they hit a peninsula. Brent Limb's brother went through the boat's windshield. He suffered major cuts to his head.

Brent Limb was crushed by the impact and the crashing tools on top of him. He now has six broken ribs, a dislocated sternum and a collapsed lung. His wife, Nora Limb, took the brunt of the crash with a broken neck and back, and a large gash to her head.

The couple's son, Elijah Limb, suffered a concussion, and their 18-year-old daughter was mostly unhurt.

As Brent Limb described the events that night, he was short of breath. But he's grateful everyone made it out alive.

His son, Joseph Limb, who wasn't with them at the time, got the chaotic call late Thursday. He and his family live in Kaysville.

"It's a call nobody wants to get in the middle of the night," Joseph Limb said. "It's heart-wrenching, especially when you don't really know everything that's going on."

He and his wife made the overnight drive to St. George where his family members were flown to the hospital. He said the family is grateful for so much community support.

"We've received a lot of response from people that know us, and it's been good," Joseph Limb said. "It's definitely brought us closer together as a family."

Friends of the Limbs have set up a GoFundMe* for the family. Since Brent is self-employed, he will be out of work until his body heals, which could be months.

*KSL.com does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisers and otherwise proceed at your own risk.

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Mariah Maynes, KSL NewsRadio

PAGE, Ariz. — Colorado River Basin conservation groups have sent a letter to the U.S. Department of the Interior urging it to cancel the Lake Powell Pipeline project that’s been in the works since 2006.

The conservation groups said the Washington County Water District’s 20-year water plan demonstrates that the county does not need the water.

In the letter, the groups also said that “a number of recent hydrological, environmental, and political issues impacting the Colorado River Basin have introduced uncertainty regarding the timing and yield of that project.”

Additionally, the groups said the new issues have prompted water officials to evaluate other options.

How the Pipeline work would work

According to the United States Bureau of Reclamation website, the Lake Powell Pipeline would begin at Lake Powell in Page, Arizona. The pipeline would end at Sand Hollow Reservoir in St. George, Utah.

It is intended to bring additional water supply to Washington County, Utah.

According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, Lake Powell’s water levels fell to a record low in 2023. That level rebounded later, however, NASA said that drought is still an issue.

Groups question Washington County’s needs based on population, water usage

The letter compared Washington County, Utah to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Tucson, Arizona. Their comparison found that Albuquerque and Tucson used about 100,000 acre-feet of water to sustain populations of about 700,00.

In contrast, Washington County used the same amount of water to sustain a population of only 180,000.

“Given that the project sponsor no longer believes the project is necessary for its water future, there is no longer a purpose or need for this project,” said the conservation groups.

Additionally, the conservation groups allege that Washington County’s water usage is high. They said that a 2020 draft of an environmental impact statement showed a single Washington County resident uses 306 gallons of water per day.

In comparison, the Environmental Protection Agency said the average American uses 82 gallons of water per day.

KSL.com reported that Utah’s cities have the lowest excessive water use rate in comparison to surrounding states. The letter urged Washington County to raise excessive use rates to curb overuse.

Lack of surplus water

The Washington Post reported that the reservoirs in the basin fell to “dangerously low levels.” As a result, the Biden administration called for reductions in water usage.

According to the letter, water flow has dropped by 20% in the Colorado River Basin since 2000. Scientists believe that there could be a 25-40% decline in Colorado River Basin water levels.

“Approving additional water diversions in this era of flow declines is laden with risks, which have painful consequences to millions of people across the Basin,” the conservation groups wrote in the letter requesting that the project be canceled.

Water rights of indigenous populations

Many of the 40 million people who live in the Colorado River Basin are indigenous to the region.

The indigenous groups that call the basin home have “repeatedly indicated” their rights to 20-25% of the water in the Colorado River Basin, according to the authors of the letter.

However, PBS reported that while the indigenous groups have rights to nearly a quarter of the water, the rights are just “paper rights.” Still, according to the PBS story, water has been stolen from indigenous groups on multiple occasions throughout history.

“And their water rights should be satisfied and/or fully addressed before the Bureau entertains new water diversions that further threaten U.S. treaty obligations,” the conservation groups said in their letter.

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