Wet winter bolsters watersheds for SRP

The Salt and Verde rivers' watersheds experienced feast-or-famine precipitation from late autumn into the spring, but this so-called runoff season was one of the most productive in years.

From January through May, the total amount of rain and snowmelt ranked as the 19th-best in Salt River Project's 105-year history, the utility announced Wednesday.

In a typical year, the two river systems receive nearly 684,000 acre-feet. In the 2008 runoff season, the total was more than 1.63 million acre-feet.

"What this wet winter means for SRP and our shareholders is that there will very likely be minimal groundwater pumping next year," said water resources manager Charlie Ester.

But he reiterated that Arizona remains in a drought.

"This was a surprisingly good runoff year for us and left the lakes close to full for the first time since 2005, but we really only had three months of wet weather," Ester said

SRP's system of six reservoirs is at 91 percent full, compared with 56 percent of capacity this time in 2007. Roosevelt Lake, the largest reservoir, is 95 percent full after reaching record storage of more than 1.6 million acre-feet in April.

In fact, the system couldn't handle the deluge. After Horseshoe and Bartlett lakes on the Verde River filled to capacity in late January, over the next two months SRP had to release more than 150,000 acre-feet of excess water into the normally dry Salt River.

Curiously, all this runoff came in a torrent before a drought.

Ester noted that the months of December, January and February produced 10.39 inches of precipitation.

That was a drenching compared with just 1.38 inches for March through May, the remainder of the runoff season.