“We’re watching it closely, we’ve sent a letter out to water users advising them of the situation, and asking them to be prudent,” GWSSA manager Mark Sovine said.
“As of April 29, 2009, Ken’s Lake storage was approximately 982 acre feet,” Sovine informed water users in the letter. “April lake levels have not been this low since 2004. The La Sal Mountain snowpack is also low and the agency is not anticipating a heavy runoff this season.”
For now, Sovine said GWSSA intends to step up monitoring to see if voluntary compliance is working.
“Normally we read the meters in July or August to see what their usage is,” he said. “We’ll be looking at it in June this year.”
If usage is exceeding capacity, GWSSA does have some reserves. “We’ve got some irrigation pumps that we’re preparing to use as necessary,” Sovine said. That means tapping into underground resources to find water for irrigation.
If none of that helps, he said, water users could face limitations. “The agency is taking steps to ensure adequate water supply to prevent the need for restrictions,” the letter states. “Please help by planning irrigation so as not to use more than your assigned amount.”
The La Sal Mountains haven’t seen the driest season on record – precipitation was nearly 80 percent of normal – but the conditions have been stacked against effective water storage, said Brian Murdock, U.S. Forest Service recreation specialist.
“It wasn’t a super bad year because of the wet spring,” Murdock said. “The Wasatch got more snow in April than they did the whole rest of the year. But I think we had more rain than snow, so it didn’t add much to the actual snowpack.”
Snowpack is key because slow-melting snow drains slowly, giving aquifers and reservoirs time to recharge. Rain tends to run off more quickly, heading for the Colorado River and other points downstream.
The snowpack the La Sals did accumulate is going away quickly, according to Murdock. “It’s come off really fast. There’s not much left,” Murdock said. “The only road that’s not really open yet is the one over Geyser Pass. Last year it was like mid-June before we were up there.”
That may be good news for people headed to the mountains to play, but it doesn’t bode well for Ken’s Lake water users, or for irrigation users on the other side of the mountains, in Colorado’s Paradox Valley, which is served by the Buckeye Reservoir in the La Sals.
“Buckeye Reservoir is probably not going to fill up all the way either,” Murdock said. “Recreationists are happy right now, because everybody can get up there, but it’s going to be a long, dry summer since we’ve got the snow off the mountain already. I was up there a couple of weeks ago, and this time of year it’s usually bank full. There’s 20, 30 feet of dry shoreline before you hit the reservoir right now.”
The lack of water is part of a larger trend, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. According to NDMC maps, the Colorado River Basin is abnormally dry, rated at one category below actual drought.
The dry conditions are one likely factor in the dust storms Moab has seen this spring, and United States Geologic Survey researchers have been warning that increased dust storms could speed runoff by encouraging snowmelt. As the dust settles on the snow, it also absorbs more heat from sunlight, warming snowpack faster. That, in turn, could exacerbate drought conditions.
While Murdock said he doesn’t know exactly how significant that effect is, he did note the unusual conditions on the slopes this spring.
“It was amazing how much dirt there was from that big wind storm,” he said. “We skied up there a few times this spring, and it basically ruined the spring skiing. There was so much dirt you could hardly slide on it.”