With heavy rainfall this year and large runoff coming from huge snowpacks, Salt River Project is increasing water releasesfrom its two Verde River reservoirs.
It went from 11,000 cubic feet per second to 16,000. It may even go up to 30,000 by the end of the week.
Patty Garcia-Likens with SRP says they are currently 83% full, and the releases are putting water in the dry bed of the Salt River.
“There is actually enough room in the river to handle all these inflows, we’ve done it before. We’ve done a bit more releases actually, higher releases. But this is definitely new to a lot of folks," Garcia-Likens said.
The last water releases were in 2019. The releases are expected to continue into April. Whether or not it’s at an increased level depends on the weather.
