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<br />2 - With respect to the Glen Canyon Institute's concept to drain Lake Powell to elevation <br />3500 feet, the following can be noted: <br /> <br />a - The minimum power pool elevation at Glen Canyon Dam is elevation 3490 feet. It <br />is possible that some power production could occur at this elevation but there <br />would be the possibility of a vortex, since the centerline of the powerplant <br />penstock is 3470 feet. As shown on the attached reservoir capacity allocation <br />sheet, the lake has a total volume of5,9 MAF at this elevation, From our area- <br />elevation curves, the lake has an area ofabout 52,000 acres, 32 percent of the <br />maximum area of 161,000 acres. <br /> <br />b - The release capacity of the outlet works is about 15,000 cfs with a gate opening of <br />about 60 percent at the full pool elevation of 3 700 feet. While this amount ldlIl be <br />released at elevation 3500 feet, a gate opening of 100 percent is required to <br />achieve this release, This may be questionable from a maintenance point of view <br />since at 100 percent gate, the velocities in the outlet tubes currently causes severe <br />cavitation, If restricted to 60 percent gate, the capacity at elevation 3500 feet is <br />about 11,600 cfs, <br /> <br />Powerplant release capacity is unclear under this concept, but existing rating <br />curves suggest that about 30,000 cfs could be released at elevation 3500 feet, <br />About 900 megawatts of capacity are available at this level, a reduction of about <br />one-third from the current maximum capacity due to the lower head, While <br />powerplant bypasses would be eliminated, energy production would also be <br />reduced, <br /> <br />b - Routings of several magnitudes of inflow were performed to evaluate the amount <br />of unintended storage that would temporarily accumulate in Lake Powell due to <br />the routing effect, With the uncertainties of release capacity, the combined <br />powerplantloutlet works capacity was assumed to be about 45,000 cfs, An <br />examination of historic Lake Powell inflows showed that 45,000 cfs was exceeded <br />about 70 percent of the time, This means that Lake Powell would gain storage in <br />the spring this frequency of years in the future, <br /> <br />c - Routings of average (1996), upper quartile (1993), and extreme (1983) years were <br />made to determine the duration of inundation at various levels upstream of the <br />dam, Starting conditions were assumed as an elevation of3500 feet and an ability <br />to pass inflow up to the 45,000 cfs level. The following table shows the routing <br />results: <br /> <br />Year Type Max Inflow # Days of Max Elev <br /> (cfs) Elev> 3500 feet (feet) <br /> <br />3 <br />