Home Care In Lake Powell, UT

Despite national reports on Lake Powell’s record-low water levels, and projections that the mega-reservoir will probably never completely fill again, the National Park Service reported record-high visitation to the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area last year.

The reservoir and its surrounding park boundary saw a whopping 5.2 million recreation visits in 2023 compared to 2.8 million in 2022, when Lake Powell was on its way to sinking to a modern historical low. It’s not clear what caused the tourism tsunami. A post-pandemic itch to travel? Morbid curiosity after international headlines shared news of the reservoir’s demise? Exuberance from boaters after a record-breaking snowpack helped raise its water by dozens of feet? Or is the National Park Service just getting better at counting?

Representatives with NPS did not respond to questions or requests for comment. But they did issue a news release late last month celebrating their deluge in visitation.

“While Lake Powell continues to provide significant recreational opportunities, more people are also recognizing the unparalleled land-based and river-based recreation options and cultural and historic resources within our 1.25 million acres,” said Michelle Kerns, superintendent of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Rainbow Bridge National Monument, in the release. “Glen Canyon continues to be an economic engine for the region in Utah and Arizona and is especially important to our gateway communities.”

[Read more: Lake Powell bounces back — but for how long?]

The way NPS collects its visitation data is unique to each park unit, developed by the superintendent and the NPS Social Science Program. Kerns became Glen Canyon NRA’s superintendent in late 2022, but she has served in leadership roles at the recreation area since 2017, according to NPS information.

One thing is clear — it wasn’t the autumn eclipse that lured tourists to Glen Canyon. NPS reports about 478,000 visitors in October. That’s a 41% increase from visits in October 2022, which is impressive, but doesn’t exactly account for all the millions of additional visitors seen last year.

Drill into Glen Canyon’s data a little further, and other pieces of the 2023 visitation report don’t seem to add up. Mike DeHoff regularly floats Cataract Canyon to document changes from the receding Lake Powell reservoir as part of the Returning Rapids Project, which involves taking rafts out at the high and dry ramp in Hite. NPS reports 218,144 recreation visits in the Hite District last year, which DeHoff finds dubious.

“From what we’re seeing,” he said, “with the continued decline in good river access at Hite, we know from 2021 to 2023 Cataract Canyon use has gone down by a third.”

But the NPS reports the Hite District saw just 46,103 visits in 2021. That means there has been a 375% increase in visitors to an area that has not had a functional marina in years. NPS even had to close all services in the district since no concessionaires wanted to run them due to a lack of traffic.

Ray Golden is general manager of North Lake Powell. He operates a hotel, grill, RV park and boat services in Ticaboo, on the Utah side of the lake near Bullfrog. He said 2023 certainly didn’t feel exceptional.

“We were never fully booked in the summer,” Golden said. “At most, we had 60% occupancy.”

If any year felt noteworthy, it was 2021 when COVID-19 was still surging and people were desperate for things to do outdoors that would not spread the virus.

“We’ll probably never see that again,” Golden said, “unless there’s another outbreak or something.”

When he saw NPS’s reports on recreational visits last year, Golden said he was skeptical.

“When I looked at those numbers I was like, ‘Wow, it had to all have been in Page,’” Golden said.

Down in Page, on the Arizona side of the lake near Wahweap, Chamber of Commerce executive director Judy Franz said 2023 was certainly buzzing.

“Usually at the grocery store or Walmart,” she said, “you can always tell when the tourists are here because you can’t get anywhere.”

The chamber’s own visitor center, which helps tourists book tours and study maps, counted about 17,000 passing through.

“We get internationals and domestics,” Franz said. “The top countries are France, Germany and Canada.”

But Max Lapekas, owner of Lake Powell Paddleboards and Kayaks, agreed that 2023 didn’t appear to break any records in Page.

“It didn’t seem like it was in ’21,” Lapekas said. “That year I saw people with boat trailers lined up almost outside the park. Trying to launch and retrieve a boat was next to impossible. Last year, you had to wait five minutes at the most.”

NPS reported total recreation visits to the Glen Canyon NRA were 3.1 million in 2021. The years 2017, 2018 and 2019, meanwhile, all saw more than 4 million visits. That’s quite a contrast to the more than 5 million visitors reported for 2023.

“My theory was almost that the park service got better at reporting and recording the amount of visitors last year,” Lapekas said.

He said he has seen more NPS staff at the marinas, partly because they are trying to track boats and prevent invasive quagga mussels from spreading. He has seen more NPS personnel at Lone Rock and Horseshoe Bend, too.

“They’ve staffed much more in the past two years,” Lapekas said.

Regardless, Franz at the Page Chamber of Commerce said despite negative headlines about the fate of Lake Powell, the reservoir and its surrounding canyons, trails, restaurants and shops are very much open for business.

“I can’t tell you how many phone calls I had from people back east who were going to come out and said, ‘I heard Lake Powell is closed, there’s no water,’” Franz said. “That is a lie.”

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After falling to record lows in early 2023, water levels in Lake Powell—the second-largest reservoir in the United States—rebounded in the summer of 2023. Above-average snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains provided some short-term relief to the reservoir, but long-term drought remains.

The images above show portions of Lake Powell, which straddles the border of Utah and Arizona, as of October 20, 2023 (right), compared to September 23, 2022 (left). As of November 12, 2023, lake levels stood at 3,572 feet (37 percent full), which is just below the 1991–2020 average for that date. The 2023 image was acquired with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 and the 2022 image was acquired by the OLI-2 on Landsat 9.

The Colorado River feeds Lake Powell and Lake Mead farther downstream. Most of the river basin is arid or semi-arid and generally receives less than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of precipitation per year. Managed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and other agencies, the river provides water and electric power to roughly 40 million people—most notably the cities of Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Diego—and water to 4 to 5 million acres of farmland in the Southwest.

A series of nine atmospheric rivers brought significant amounts of rain and snow to the western U.S. in December 2022 and January 2023. But much of the precipitation in the Colorado River Basin stayed frozen at high elevations of the Rocky Mountains, preventing it from entering Lake Powell. On April 13, water in the lake fell just below 3,520 feet, its lowest level since the reservoir was filled in 1980.

As temperatures increased in spring and summer, above-average runoff from the Rockies provided a much-needed reprieve. The amount of water held in the reservoir rose from 22 percent full in April to about 40 percent full in early July.

But it will take much more than one wet year to refill the reservoir to “full pool” (elevation 3,700 feet). Two decades of drought in the American Southwest have drawn down water in the reservoir. Water levels in Lake Powell fell to a record low in 2022 and again in 2023.

In April 2023, USBR released a draft Environmental Impact Statement for Colorado River Operations, which assessed the chances of the reservoir falling below the critical elevation of 3,490 feet. This elevation, known as the “minimum power pool,” is the level below which water can no longer flow through the intake valves in the dam to generate hydroelectric power. USBR warned that water levels had a 57 percent chance of dropping to below the minimum power pool before 2026. But because of above-average runoff in the spring and summer, USBR revised these estimates in October 2023. They found that the chance of the reservoir dipping to this elevation through 2026 had fallen to 8 percent.

The impact statement noted that although there is year-to-year variation in flow in the Colorado River and its tributaries, the basin is still in a prolonged period of aridification caused by climate change. Drought and low runoff from 2000 to 2022 have led to “the driest 23-year period in more than a century and one of the driest periods in the last 1,200 years.”

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey and lake elevation data from the Bureau of Reclamation. Story by Emily Cassidy.

SALT LAKE CITY — 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 on Lake Powell and last Thursday had just finished a job when he and his family left Halls Crossing to head home.

In the summer, his family takes a vacation out 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 out on the lake, they hit a peninsula. Brent’s brother went through the boat’s windshield. He suffered major cuts to his head.

Brent 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, took the brunt of the crash with a broken neck, and back and a large gash to her head.

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

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

His son, Joseph, 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 what’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 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 TV 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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Spring storms brought more snow to mountains across the Western U.S., bringing water for struggling Lake Powell with them.

The National Weather Service Colorado Basin River Forecast Center on Friday estimated that Lake Powell will receive 5.7 million acre-feet of water between April and July as snow melts off the mountains. An acre-foot is roughly enough water to sustain two houses for a year.

That volume is 89% of the normal runoff for that time period recorded between 1991 and 2020.

Facing extreme drought and climate change since the turn of the century, Lake Powell dropped to a historic low of 22% full in Feb. 2023. The reservoir currently stands at about 32% full.

Three factors determine how much water ends up in Lake Powell: the amount of snowpack on Western mountains, spring temperatures (warmer weather can cause snow to melt faster) and soil moisture (dry soil absorbs melting snow, leaving less water for reservoirs).

Snowpack jumped in March throughout the Upper Colorado River Basin, the portion of the river basin that lies above Lake Powell and includes Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

On March 1, snow water equivalent — the amount of water contained in snow — above Lake Powell stood at 97% of the median snow water equivalent between 1991 and 2020.

A month later, on April 1, forecasters recorded Upper Basin snowpack at 113% of the median.

(Colorado Basin River Forecast Center) This graph depicts snowpack in the Upper Colorado River Basin, which includes Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming. SWE stands for snow water equivalent, which is the measure of how much water is in snow. As of April 1, snow water equivalent in the Upper Basin is 113% of the median snow water equivalent recorded between 1991 and 2020.

Snowpack conditions above Lake Powell improved because of active weather in March, forecasters said, which was the third month in a row with near to above-normal precipitation throughout the Colorado River Basin.

Last month, the Upper Basin saw 130% of average precipitation, bringing precipitation above Lake Powell to 102% of average for October 2023 through March 2024.

But an above-average year for snow doesn’t guarantee an above-average runoff, given the forecast of warm spring temperatures and dry soil conditions.

Right now, forecasters say, soil moisture across the entire Colorado River Basin — which includes Arizona, California and Nevada as the Lower Basin — is close to below normal. Soil moisture is better in the Upper Basin than in the Lower Basin.

When forecasting how much water Lake Powell will get, hydrologists release three possible scenarios. On Friday, forecasters reported that there is a 10% chance that the reservoir could receive as much as 8.3 million acre-feet of water or more from April through July. In a drier scenario, there is a 10% chance that runoff could drop to 4.4 million acre-feet of water or below. The most likely case is that Lake Powell sees about 5.7 million acre-feet of water.

Forecasters in late March predicted that Lake Powell would receive 5.4 million acre-feet of water between April and July.

These estimates guide the management of the Colorado River, which serves 40 million Americans, 30 Native American tribes and sustains various ecosystems and habitats.

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A stalled regulatory process, extreme drought and significant opposition have stranded the Lake Powell pipeline in permitting purgatory, leading many to believe that the project was dead in the (lack of) water.

But it’s not, and environmental nonprofits from across the Colorado River Basin want to change that.

They are asking the Department of the Interior to eject the Lake Powell pipeline from future environmental permitting — essentially, to prevent it from ever being built.

“The [Lake Powell pipeline] is incompatible with sustainable Colorado River policy, it is incompatible with the Bureau of Reclamation’s direction calling upon Colorado River Basin states to cut 2-4 million acre-feet from the system, and we believe the Bureau of Reclamation should not be permitting a project that would further reduce the Colorado River water supply,” reads their letter to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.

The pipeline, which has been in limbo since 2020, would span 143 miles from shrinking Lake Powell to St. George and Kane County. Water managers in Washington County, where St. George is located, say that the city needs Colorado River water to sustain its booming population.

The pipeline would draw 86,000 acre-feet per year of the lake’s water, which is supplied by the drought-stricken Colorado River, and cost the state between $1.3 and $2.2 billion to construct.

Utah water officials thought that the project would be approved by the end of 2020, but the other six states that make up the Colorado River Basin — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming — asserted that the project raised “substantive legal and operational issues” in a letter to former Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt.

The Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages water projects, then issued a supplemental environmental impact statement to address the public comments brought by the basin states and conservation groups. As of last August, $30 million had been consumed by the project’s environmental review and planning processes.

Despite these stalls and setbacks, permitting efforts for the pipeline have quietly continued.

“The [Lake Powell pipeline] remains an essential part of Utah’s long-term water supply plan for southern Utah,” Karry Rathje, communications director for the Washington County Water Conservancy District, wrote in an email to The Salt Lake Tribune.

“Because Washington County’s growth projections outstrip available local water supplies, Washington County continues to plan for its long-term future, including acquiring rights of way when available,” Rathje continued.

Colorado River flows have decreased by 20% since the turn of the century due to extreme drought, and Lake Powell has felt the loss. Lake Powell is currently only 35% full.

The pipeline’s draft design, which could put intakes above the lake’s dwindling surface, is incompatible with drought conditions and diminishing flows.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Zachary Frankel, executive director of the nonprofit Utah Rivers Council, told The Tribune. “And how is it that the Lower Basin is cutting 3 million acre-feet and Utah is proposing the largest new water diversion anywhere in the basin?”

In May, the Lower Colorado River Basin states — Arizona, California and Nevada — agreed to slash their water use by at least 3 million acre-feet through the end of 2026. They said that 1.5 million acre-feet of that total would be conserved by the end of 2024.

Last week, California announced that it would cut its Colorado River use by 643,000 acre-feet through the end of 2025 as part of this agreement.

Environmental nonprofits that oppose the pipeline say that the project flies in the face of these current efforts to conserve water in the basin. Rathje wrote that “Washington County is doing everything possible to meet increasing water demands with increased conservation, additional reuse and local supply development.”

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