Tom Buschatzke Warns Hoover Dam Capacity Will Drop 70 Percent
Lake Mead is expected to fall below the 1,035-foot mark at Hoover Dam within the next 12 months, cutting hydropower capacity by 70 percent. Tom Buschatzke, the director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said in mid-May, “We’re going to go to 1,035,” and added, “There’s no question that’s going to happen.”
The lake was at 1,050 feet when the article was published and had been dropping roughly one foot every five days earlier this month. Water managers have known for at least a year and a half that 1,035 feet would create a problem, and the Bureau of Reclamation is already spending $52 million on new turbines meant to keep power available at lower levels.
Hoover Dam's 1,035-foot threshold
Hoover Dam is the largest hydropower facility in the Colorado River basin, and the cut begins when Lake Mead drops below elevation 1,035 feet above sea level. Twelve of the dam's 17 turbines are not designed to operate in low-water conditions below that level, which is why the generating drop is so steep.
That leaves a narrower operating margin just as Lake Mead keeps falling. The lower basin states of Arizona and Calif. are already living with a reservoir level that has moved close enough to the trigger point that the shift is expected this year, not at some distant date.
Reclamation's turbine plan
On May 21, the Bureau of Reclamation said it will spend $52 million on three new wide-head turbines. Scott Cameron, the acting Reclamation commissioner, said in a press release, “Unlocking these funds allows us to move forward with critical upgrades at one of the nation’s most important hydropower facilities,”
The new turbines will be able to generate power down to elevation 950 feet. Once they are installed and joined with the existing five wide-head units, the cut to generating capacity below 1,035 feet will shrink to 58 percent instead of 70 percent.
Lake Mead and Lake Powell
The pressure at Hoover Dam is tied to conditions upstream. In April, Reclamation decided to reduce water releases out of Lake Powell this year by 20 percent, a move meant to limit damage as the system keeps sliding lower. Without holding back water and releasing more from upstream reservoirs, Powell would have dropped below its own hydropower trip wire by the end of the summer.
That is the tradeoff water managers are making now: hold back more water where they can, accept less flexibility in power production, and try to keep the system from hitting a harder limit all at once. For customers and grid operators who depend on Hoover Dam's output, the practical issue is not whether the threshold is real — it is how quickly the system can absorb a 70 percent cut before the new turbines come online.
