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 So how much will actually be withdrawn depends on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.
