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- Rain, Less Water Demands in Lower Colorado River Basin Require Reduced Releases from Parker and Davis Dams
News Release Archive
Rain, Less Water Demands in Lower Colorado River Basin Require Reduced Releases from Parker and Davis Dams
Media Contact:
Robert Walsh , 702-293-8421 , 01/20/2010 00:38
River Operations Center, 702-293-8373, bcoowaterops@usbr.gov
For Release: January 20, 2010
The Bureau of Reclamation is reducing the amount of water being released from Parker and Davis Dams on the lower Colorado River in response to recent rain storms in southern California and Arizona that have increased the potential for high inflows into Lake Havasu from the Bill Williams River. These rain events have also resulted in lower water orders from communities and agricultural districts downstream of Parker Dam.
At Parker Dam, north of Parker, Arizona, releases have been reduced to approximately 2,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). This level of release is expected to continue into the weekend. Average daily releases from Parker Dam have been ranging between 4,000 and 6,000 cfs over the past few weeks.
Releases at Davis Dam, north of Laughlin, Nevada, will be reduced to approximately 4,500 cfs beginning this evening and will continue until early Sunday morning (January 24th). Average daily releases are expected to return to 9,500 cfs or higher at that time. Depending on weather patterns, however, the lower releases may continue beyond Sunday.
Additional reductions may be required based on changing rainfall projections from forecasted Pacific storms.
Daily and hourly information on releases from Reclamation's Colorado River dams is available on Reclamation's web site at http://www.usbr.gov/lc/riverops.html.
Davis and Parker Dams projected three-day hourly releases are available at: http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/hourly/MsuWebPageReport.html .
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