PAGE — Although high country snow has yet to begin melting, snowpack in the upper Colorado River basin is well above average and prospects remain good that Lake Powell will reach its highest level in years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

With snowpack in the upper Colorado basin currently at 129 percent of average for this time of year, Reclamation officials are projecting a runoff of 10.2 million acre feet between April and July, the traditional runoff season, said Reclamation information officer Barry Wirth.

“So we’re still on track to see Lake Powell come up approximately 50 feet,” he said. He cautioned that, until that snow has melted and is actually in the river system, it isn’t certain that all of the accumulations will result in runoff.

“We’re probably a little more cautious than we might have been in previous years,” he said, adding that winters with good snowpack have sometimes been followed by hot, dry springs that have resulted in high evaporation rates and high absorption into soils, precluding the expected runoff into the river system.

“This year we’ve got a lot of soils that are well-saturated,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of things in our favor this year to make the runoff a lot more efficient, and on top of that we have a lot more snow.”

Of all the drainages in the upper basin, only the Green River is below average at 90 percent, according to Reclamation data. At the other end of the spectrum, the San Juan River in southwest Colorado and northwest New Mexico is at 142 percent of average.

Lake Powell currently stands at nearly 3,589 feet above sea level, which represents 44 percent of its capacity. It was last considered full in 1999, when it reached 3,697 feet. Its lowest elevation was in April 2005 at 3,557 feet.

If the projections hold, the Castle Rock Cut (a popular shortcut up lake from Wahweap Marina) should be navigable again, for the first time in years, by mid-June, Wirth said.

“Right now we’re projecting a pretty big rise in mid-June,” he said. “If things go as expected, we’ll have quite a bit of water in that Castle Rock Cut through the boating season.”

Although power production has been reduced by the drought, Wirth said, it has continued regardless, as has recreation on the lake that provides a multi-million-dollar economic impact on Page and the surrounding region.

“I think the resiliency of the system is amazing, when you consider the severity of the drought,” Wirth said. “It really got put to the test, and it came through. The system did what it was supposed to do, and it did it for all seven states (in the Colorado River basin). And now we have an opportunity to get some of that water back.”

The drought isn’t over, however, and forecasting future trends remains largely a guessing game, Wirth said, in spite of volumes of studies on the river’s past flows and projected future flows.

Reclamation began operating Glen Canyon Dam under new drought and water shortage guidelines in January, and those guidelines are set to continue through 2026, Wirth noted. Developed under a two-year environmental assessment, the guidelines include reductions in overall use by California, restrictions on use triggered by specific lake levels at Lake Mead, and greater flexibility in making water deliveries out of Lake Powell.

Tree ring studies show that, over the past 1,500 years, most severe droughts have lasted no more than two to three decades, and have been punctuated by spikes of high-precipitation years that brought Colorado River flows up to 80 percent of average over the duration of those droughts.

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