VOLUME 119 Issue

Federal government to hold back water in drought-stricken Lake Powell

BY MICHAEL ELIZABETH SAKAS COLORADO PUBLIC RADIO

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced on May 3 emergency plans to protect Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border by holding back water releases to downstream states.

The reservoir has plummeted to its lowest level on record amid more than 20 years of record-breaking drought in the Colorado River Basin.

This is the fi rst time the agency has moved to delay a release of water from Lake Powell that normally goes to Arizona, California and Nevada. Instead, the federal agency plans to keep more than 480,000 acre-feet of water in the reservoir to prop up supplies to protect hydropower production.

Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest reservoir, is fed by a Colorado River storage system that supplies water and hydroelectric power to millions of people across the West. Climate change is contributing to a steep and rapid decline in the available supply of water.

Water levels in the lake have dropped close to “dead pool,” the lowest point at which Glen Canyon Dam can generate hydropower. The Bureau of Reclamation is invoking its authority to change how the dam and the reservoir will operate this year to help ensure the dam’s turbines keep spinning.

In a separate action announced last month, upper-basin states worked with the Bureau of Reclamation on a plan to send another 500,000 acre-feet to Lake Powell from Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Utah-Wyoming border under their drought response agreement for the year. A similar action was taken last year when water from Flaming Gorge and Blue Mesa Reservoir in Colorado was sent to Powell because of drought and dropping reservoir levels. There are no plans to release additional water from Blue Mesa to Lake Powell this year.

The combined nearly 1 million acre-feet added to Lake Powell will help protect the reservoir and its infrastructure over the next 12-months. Tanya Trujillo, Interior Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, said the action gives the agency more time to fi gure out how to operate Glen Canyon Dam at lower water levels.

Trujillo said the move to hold water in Lake Powell was an “extraordinary action.”

“We have never taken this step before in the Colorado River Basin, but the conditions we see today and the potential risks we see on the horizon demand that we take prompt action,” she said at a May 2 press conference.

Trujillo said the 30 Native American tribes in the basin were consulted, as were the states and partners in Mexico that also rely on the Colorado River. Trujillo said the agency received “consensus support” for these actions to protect Powell.

The federal government’s move to store more water in Lake Powell is a temporary solution. Trujillo said Colorado River water users need to “immediately engage” in developing additional conservation measures, including water recycling, innovative water storage ideas and repairing aging, ineffi cient pipes and other water infrastructure.

“We all have to fi nd ways to maximize effi ciency and use less water,” she said.

As drought conditions worsen, the federal government is taking unprecedented steps to save Lake Powell. SHUTTERSTOCK

This story is from Colorado Public Radio, a nonprofi t news source. Used by permission. For more, and to support CPR News, visit cpr.org.

Nonprofi t gives $1.5M cash to formerly incarcerated Coloradans

A fi rst-of-its-kind cash assistance program gives people a second chance

BY MARGARET FLEMING THE COLORADO SUN

Heather Fitzsimmons was working on getting her life back together and staying clean while on probation in Aurora when she noticed what seemed to be an extra deposit in the account where she gets paid.

Fitzsimmons called to alert her employers at the Center for Employment Opportunities in Denver, part of a national organization providing immediate employment for formerly incarcerated people. They explained the nonprofi t’s new pilot program — a fi rst-of-its-kind cash assistance initiative giving $24 million to more than 10,000 former inmates across the country.

“It helped me get in a better mental spot to where I feel like it’s actually possible to stay off the street and to maintain a job,” Fitzsimmons said. “It gave me the boost that I needed to get out.”

Fitzsimmons used the cash to pay part of a deposit on an apartment and get a car to drive to her job. Before that, she was homeless for six years and without a car for eight years. Now she works to help other people who are homeless and addicted to drugs or alcohol.

The cash assistance program delivered $1.5 million to 623 former inmates in and around Denver. More than 10,000 people in 28 cities received up to $2,750 nationwide. All funding from the program has already been distributed with the goal of helping formerly incarcerated people transition back to their communities.

The national stimulus program is privately funded by philanthropic interests including the Justice and Mobility Fund, Agnes Gund Foundation, Art For Justice Fund, George Kaiser Family Foundation and Robin Hood.

The Center for Employment Opportunities partners with the Second Chance Center reentry service in Aurora, where 246 people received cash through the stimulus funding, according to Khalil Halim, the executive director. The assistance will help ease socioeconomic pressures that contribute to crime, he said.

“With a program like this, it gives people some of that stability where they’re not stressed and they’re not anxious and they’re able to stabilize themselves,” Halim said. “And they’re not looking at committing crimes to stabilize themselves.”

“With a program like this, it gives people some of that stability where they’re not stressed and they’re not anxious and they’re able to stabilize themselves,” said Khalil Halim, executive director at Second Chance. “And they’re not looking at committing crimes to stabilize themselves.” (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)

People who received cash through the program have used the extra funds to pay for program fees at halfway houses, clothing, food, shelter and transportation. Some of Halim’s clients used the stimulus to start their own businesses.

Colorado lawmakers made efforts to support formerly incarcerated people this fall, starting a new reentry initiative to encourage hiring those recently released. The network will formally launch this summer with events to increase the number of fair chance employers, support them with training and connect them with employees.

The program is meant to complement broader policy changes in the justice system, said Pam Lachman, the organization’s senior director. “But just from what we’ve seen from the interim evaluation and from the stories we’ve heard, it had a huge kind of stabilizing impact on people.”

Lachman said organization leaders noticed the fi nancial crisis for their employees as the pandemic hit, because participants in the program are paid daily. Being unable to work as many hours in-person made it more diffi cult to get on fi rm ground after jail or prison.

Carmen Ortega is another stimulus recipient who is now a full-time staffer running the work crew for the nonprofi t’s location in Colorado Springs. She was homeless for four straight years and faced 32 years in prison before making a drastic change.

“Those four times that I came out of jail, I came out to nothing,” Ortega said. “I came out with nothing at all. Not even underwear, to be honest.”

After jail, Ortega didn’t have money for food, clothing or housing. She said getting involved with the organization and receiving funds was a new beginning. Last week was her third anniversary of being clean.

The stimulus money can provide a safety plan by getting people off the street and into a hotel room for the night, Ortega said. She said many people who are homeless in Colorado Springs come out of jail or prison with no money and have trouble securing necessities to rebuild their lives, from medication to a driver’s license.

“It will be a tremendous blessing,” Ortega said. “Because they will have something in hand, something to work with.”

This story is from The Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver and covering the state. For more, and to support The Colorado Sun, visit coloradosun.com. The Colorado Sun is a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy, owner of Colorado Community Media.