Why is Lake Powell being drained?
To meet the legal demands of the Colorado River Compact and to generate hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam, the Bureau of Reclamation must release water from the reservoir even as less water flows in from the parched western states upstream. The Bureau must also satisfy the demands of the 1992 Grand Canyon Protection Act, which requires it to balance the ecological needs of Grand Canyon National Park, immediately downstream from the dam, with water and power needs. This Act was passed in response to years of protest from environmentalists and river-runners, and led to research that showed that Glen Canyon Dam was having a disastrous impact on the ecosystem of the Grand Canyon. David Wegner, the Bureau of Reclamation’s chief scientist on these ecosystem studies, was forced out of his job after criticizing the much publicized flood release in 1996, which officials claimed had solved the problem. Ecological disaster Most people who have heard of Glen Canyon through books like The Place No One
