BOARD00887

• Board Meeting Date: 7/8/1966
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

~.J...J..":::;;

the last few months have been carefully con-
trolled to practically eliminate fluctuation
in the water level at Lake Mead. This per-
mitted ideal spawning and habitat for newly
hatched bass during this period. This turned 1
out to be a difficult assignment since power
loads at Glen Canyon had to be completely com-
patible with water relea,e' from Boover in order .
to maintain an exact balance between inflow and
outflow from Lake Mead.

During the next year we expect the Colo-
rado River storage project reservoirs to
operate about as follows:

Lake powell, now at elevation 3,545, will
probably not rise appreciably more but will
level off and gradually decline about l8 feet
to a predicted March 1967 low of elevation
3,527 feet. At that time the lake volume will
have dropped to 8.2 million acre-feet from its
present level of about 9.5 million acre-feet.

Flaming Gorge Reservoir will increase only
slightly this summer before declining about 20
feet vertically during tile fall and winter.
Total storage of water in Flaming Gorge, now
at 2.7 million acre-feet, will fall to 2.2
million acre-feet. Releases for recreation
purposes will not be allowed to drop below
1,200 cubic feet per second through Labor Day
except for emergencies which cannot be antici-
pated.

Navajo Reservoir has been held at a lOt.,
level to permit completion of the diversion
tunnel for the Navajo Indian Irrigation Proj-
ect. Since this work is now almost complete,
the release of water from Navajo Dam has been 1
reduced to 500 cubic feet per second to en-
hance recreational use of the reservoir. Level
of tile reservoir, n01tl at elevation 5,962, will
rise about another 5 feet vertically during the
remainder of the recreation season or within
about 3 feet of the end of the boat ramp at
Arboles, Colorado.