Bear Lake Water Levels Predicted

 

By Claudia Cottle,

Bear Lake Watch

 

What we didn't get, won't get and what we'll lose. Seems like there has been no good news this year.

 It's hard to fathom that such a long hard winter could leave us with such a poor water supply, but that is absolutely the case.  The snowpack in the Bear River basin sits at 71% of normal, the low level snow  is all gone, the mid level is mostly gone. Sadly, not much of the meager high level  snow in the headwaters of  Uintahs  will be making its way to Bear Lake, as the upstream, Woodruff Narrows Reservoir is very low (15%) and is in line to fill before any water would pass down the river.  The flows in the Bear River are expected to be so low that  the Stewart Dam diversion will be less than twenty percent of normal. The reality is that if you were watching closely you already saw the "peak" of the runoff from the river during the third week in March, when Rainbow Canal was at 200cfs. Even last year we got up over 600cfs for a few days in April.  It is not expected to go anywhere near that this year.   On April 1, inflow at the Causeway  was only 150 cfs. (No, this is not an April Fool's joke!)

 

The 2012 lake level ended at 5915.5 ft. Since then it has come up roughly a foot and is only expected to gain another 7 inches.   This means that 2013 will be topping off at a high of around 5917.3. As bad as that  sounds,  the increase of 1.8 feet, doesn't even make the  "Top 20 Worst" list for Bear Lake. That list is dominated by the 1990's and the early 2000's.  Hopefully the 2010's don't take over the list.

 

Where we will be by the end of the summer depends on the weather and the good practices of crop producers. It is one of the unusual years, when it's a very bad water year, but because the lake is still relatively high, the downstream irrigators will be permitted a full allocation of 245,000 af. (as per the Bear Lake Settlement Agreement ). It is also a year that they may actually need to use most of it. Most years there is enough rain and other water in the lower river system, that they do not use their full allocation. The outlook doesn't look for that. Only properly timed rain events can help.

 

Most of our downstream irrigators are committed to conservation . They know that water left in Bear Lake is like money in a savings account. So how much will actually be withdrawn depends on the weather creating the need by being hot and dry or satisfying the need with cool rain.

  

Therefore, with each foot of elevation being approximately 70,000 af, the lake could be drawn down  3 1/2 feet. But we're still not done, nature will be taking its share also through evaporation. It is estimated Bea Lake looses +/- 30 inches a year. This is also a scenario for the pumping to start early, so the lake will probably peak in early May and then start down. 2001 was a similar year but the peak was July 1st.So the good news for some and the bad news for other is that there will be more beach sooner than later.