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PHOENIX — Newly built-up sandbars crucial to wildlife in the Grand Canyon have rapidly eroded in the past four months, some shrinking back to the size they were before a costly man-made flood.
Torrents of water were released from the Glen Canyon Dam on the Arizona-Utah border in March to mimic natural flooding and rebuild sandbars along the 277-mile river.
The accelerated erosion is the result of a requirement to release extra water from Lake Powell above the dam into the Colorado River, said John Hammill, chief of the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center. When Lake Powell has extra water, some of it needs to be released, ensuring that Colorado River states all get an equal share.
