# What is dead pool at Lake Mead and Lake Powell? > Dead pool is the level below which a dam can no longer release water downstream by gravity: 895 feet above sea level at Lake Mead and 3,370 feet at Lake Powell. Minimum power pool, where the turbines stop, sits higher, at 950 feet at Hoover Dam and 3,490 feet at Glen Canyon Dam. _Updated Oct 14, 2026._ Dead pool is the water level below which a reservoir can no longer release water downstream by gravity: 895 feet above sea level at Lake Mead and 3,370 feet at Lake Powell, per the Bureau of Reclamation. Minimum power pool, the level below which the dam stops making hydropower, sits higher, at 950 feet at Hoover Dam and 3,490 feet at Glen Canyon Dam. Lake Mead stood at 1,037.53 feet above sea level on Oct 15, 2026, 87.53 feet above minimum power pool (950 feet) and 142.53 feet above dead pool (895 feet). Lake Powell stood at 3,519.79 feet above sea level on Oct 15, 2026, 29.79 feet above minimum power pool (3,490 feet) and 149.79 feet above dead pool (3,370 feet). [Chart: Lake Mead water level at the end of each year](https://the-waterline.com/history/lake-mead) ([data](https://the-waterline.com/history/lake-mead.md) — chart image: https://the-waterline.com/charts/history/lake-mead/chart.png) **Lake Mead and Lake Powell: the levels that matter, in feet above sea level** | Reservoir | Level | Elevation (ft) | What happens there | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Lake Mead | Maximum water surface | 1,229 | Top of the flood control space: 1,500,000 acre-feet held empty above full pool | | Lake Mead | Full pool | 1,219.6 | A full reservoir (Reclamation: top of joint use) | | Lake Mead | Former minimum power pool | 1,050 | Hoover Dam's turbine floor until five wide-head turbines went in, 2011 to 2016 | | Lake Mead | Minimum power pool | 950 | Estimated lowest level at which Hoover Dam can generate | | Lake Mead | Dead pool | 895 | No release by gravity below it; 2,547,000 acre-feet of dead storage lies beneath | | Lake Powell | Full pool | 3,700 | A full reservoir (Reclamation: maximum active pool); flood control space runs to about 3,750 | | Lake Powell | Minimum power pool | 3,490 | 20 feet above the penstock intakes (3,470 ft); below it, river outlet works only | | Lake Powell | Minimum discharge elevation | 3,394 | Reclamation's planning floor for the outlet works, 20 feet above their intake centerline | | Lake Powell | Dead pool | 3,370 | Intake invert of the river outlet works: no release by gravity below it | _Sources: Bureau of Reclamation, Lake Mead Reservoir Capacity Allocations (signed Oct 31, 2022; area and capacity tables from the 2001 sedimentation and 2009 LiDAR surveys, minimum power pool updated Oct 2016 for the wide-head turbines); Bureau of Reclamation Technical Service Center, Technical Decision Memorandum, Interim Operating Guidance for Glen Canyon Dam during Low Reservoir Levels at Lake Powell (Mar 26, 2024)._ The chart is Lake Mead's level at the end of every year since 1935, in the same feet above sea level the table uses. Every threshold in the table comes from Reclamation's own engineering documents, and none of them moves with the weather: they are set by where the dams' intakes and outlets sit in the concrete. ## Full pool and flood space Full pool is the top of the space a reservoir is allowed to fill for water supply. At Lake Mead that is 1,219.6 feet, which Reclamation's capacity sheet calls the top of joint use. Above it, up to 1,229 feet, Reclamation holds 1,500,000 acre-feet empty to catch floods. Lake Mead has stood at full pool in only two years, 1941 and 1983 ([Lake Mead water level by year](/guides/lake-mead-water-level-history) has the record). At Lake Powell full pool is about 3,700 feet, with flood control space above it to about 3,750 feet. ## Minimum power pool: where the turbines stop Water reaches a dam's turbines through penstocks, large pipes whose intakes sit partway up the upstream face. At Glen Canyon Dam the eight penstock intakes are centered at 3,470 feet. The dam's original design record set 3,490 feet, 20 feet above them, as the lowest level for making power. Reclamation's March 2024 technical memo on low reservoir levels says that margin is believed to guard against vortices forming at the intakes, which can pull air into the turbines and cause vibration and cavitation. Below 3,490 feet the only way water leaves Lake Powell is the river outlet works: four 96-inch steel pipes with intakes centered at 3,374 feet, recommended for no more than 15,000 cubic feet per second combined. Reclamation's guidance in that memo is to use the full extent of its operating tools in the upper basin to keep Lake Powell at or above 3,490 feet, partly because running the outlet works for long periods at low water risks cavitation damage inside them. Hoover Dam's line moved. Until Reclamation installed five wide-head turbines between 2011 and 2016, the lowest level at which Hoover could safely generate was 1,050 feet. With the new units Reclamation estimates it at 950 feet. The 2,006,000 acre-feet between 895 and 950 feet can still be released through the dam's outlets, but not through its turbines. ## Dead pool is not empty Dead pool is a statement about plumbing, not about how much water is left. At Lake Mead, 2,547,000 acre-feet sits below the 895-foot line, water that would remain in the canyon with no way to flow out by gravity. At Lake Powell the outlet works can in theory draw down to 3,370 feet, the bottom of their intakes. For planning, Reclamation treats 3,394 feet, 20 feet above the outlet intakes' centerline, as the practical minimum for releases, and estimates about 3.7 million acre-feet lies between 3,490 and 3,394 feet. A lake at dead pool would still hold a great deal of water. It just could not send it downstream to the cities, farms and the river below the dam. ## Worked example: 2026 on the daily readings Lake Mead began 2026 at 1,062.28 feet on Jan 1 and peaked at 1,066.14 feet on Feb 28. It fell below 1,050 feet, Hoover's old turbine floor, on Jun 1 (1,049.73 feet), passed below its July 2022 low on Aug 6, and read 1,037.69 feet on Oct 7. That put it 87.69 feet above minimum power pool and 142.69 feet above dead pool. Against Hoover's old 1,050-foot floor, the same reading would have been 12.31 feet below the power line. Lake Powell began the year at 3,540.17 feet. A 2026 snowmelt that brought only 18% of average April-July inflow, per Reclamation's Sep 15, 2026 24-Month Study, gave it almost no spring rise, and on Aug 15 it dropped below its April 2023 low of 3,519.92 feet. It reached 3,516.62 feet on Sep 15, 26.62 feet above minimum power pool, then edged up to 3,519.04 feet by Oct 7. Reclamation's study reports two actions behind that: it cut Glen Canyon Dam's release for water year 2026 from 7.48 to 6.00 million acre-feet as Powell was projected to fall below 3,500 feet, and under a 2026 Drought Response Operations Plan it is sending 660,000 acre-feet to 1.00 million acre-feet of extra water from [Flaming Gorge Reservoir](/reservoir/flaming-gorge-reservoir) to Lake Powell by April 2027. [Chart: Lake Powell storage](https://the-waterline.com/reservoir/lake-powell) ([data](https://the-waterline.com/reservoir/lake-powell.md) — chart image: https://the-waterline.com/charts/reservoir/lake-powell/chart.png) The Lake Powell chart is storage in acre-feet against its normal band. [Lake Powell water level](/reservoir/lake-powell) and [Lake Mead water level](/reservoir/lake-mead) carry each lake's daily surface elevation, the number every line in the table above is written in, and [the Colorado River system in charts](/guides/the-colorado-river-system-in-charts) shows how the two reservoirs work as one system. ## Related data + guides - [Lake Mead water level](https://the-waterline.com/reservoir/lake-mead) - [Lake Powell water level](https://the-waterline.com/reservoir/lake-powell) - [Flaming Gorge Reservoir water level](https://the-waterline.com/reservoir/flaming-gorge-reservoir) - [The Colorado River system in charts](https://the-waterline.com/guides/the-colorado-river-system-in-charts) - [Lake Mead water level by year](https://the-waterline.com/guides/lake-mead-water-level-history) - [Storage vs capacity vs percent of normal](https://the-waterline.com/guides/reservoir-storage-vs-capacity) ## Common questions ### What is the dead pool level for Lake Mead? 895 feet above sea level, Reclamation's top of dead storage at Hoover Dam. Below it no water can leave the lake by gravity, and about 2,547,000 acre-feet would remain in the reservoir beneath that line. ### What is the dead pool level for Lake Powell? 3,370 feet, the bottom of the river outlet works' intakes at Glen Canyon Dam. Reclamation plans releases to a practical floor of 3,394 feet, 20 feet above the outlet intakes' centerline. ### What is the difference between minimum power pool and dead pool? Minimum power pool is where the turbines stop (950 feet at Hoover Dam, 3,490 feet at Glen Canyon Dam). Between it and dead pool, water can still be released through the dam's outlet works but makes no electricity. Below dead pool (895 and 3,370 feet) nothing can be released by gravity at all. ### How close is Lake Mead to dead pool? On the latest reading Lake Mead stood at 1,037.53 feet above sea level on Oct 15, 2026, 142.53 feet above dead pool (895 feet) and 87.53 feet above minimum power pool (950 feet). ### What happens if Lake Powell drops below minimum power pool? Glen Canyon Dam stops generating, and every release has to pass through the four river outlet works pipes, which Reclamation recommends running at no more than 15,000 cubic feet per second combined. Its 2024 memo flags cavitation damage in those pipes as the main risk of relying on them for long periods. --- Canonical URL: https://the-waterline.com/guides/full-pool-dead-pool-minimum-power-pool