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Q&AZ: What is the water level in San Carlos Lake?

Q&AZ is supported in part by Abrazo Health

Through our Q&AZ reporting project, a listener asked what is the water level in San Carlos Lake.

The lake is located on the San Carlos Apache Reservation and was created to help bring Gila River water to central Arizona farmers.

But the lake has had dry periods over the years, and the recent drought has been hard on it.

Shane Lindstrom is with the San Carlos Irrigation and Drainage District. He says that last summer, the lake dried up.

Then the monsoon kicked in.

"It’s been just a great year so far. You know the summer rains kept through the fall, and now with the winter rains, we have a snowpack, and we have, as of today, 342,000 acre feet behind the dam which is about a little more than a third full, and it’s still rising," Lindstrom said.

He says that New Mexico’s snowpack in the upper Gila is in good shape, which could mean high spring runoff.

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Ron Dungan was a senior field correspondent at KJZZ from 2020 to 2024.