Smith and Morehouse, Porcupine only full reservoirs in Utah right now

by · KSL.com

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Smith and Morehouse and Porcupine reservoirs are Utah's only full reservoirs.
  • Smith and Morehouse is at 102% capacity, Porcupine at 100% as of now.
  • High water levels provide hope but don't mitigate Utah's ongoing drought issues.

OAKLEY, Summit County — As many reservoirs across Utah struggle with low levels, Smith and Morehouse Reservoir is bucking that trend, currently sitting at 102% of capacity, according to the Utah Division of Water Resources.

"It gives us hope that the other lakes in the state will one day be full again," Lydia Cox, a camper at Smith and Morehouse, said Friday. "We need to conserve water and be a little bit more careful with everything."

The current water levels do not come by pure happenstance, however. While mountain lakes may benefit from the higher-elevation snowpack, the reservoirs are also typically kept fuller during challenging years by water managers, allowing for storage down the line.

Similarly, Porcupine Reservoir currently sits at 100% of capacity. The full conditions make for a nice stop during the holiday weekend.

As many reservoirs struggle statewide, some of the smaller, high-elevation reservoirs remain full. That's not by chance, but rather strategy on the part of water managers.Mike Anderson, KSL

"It's just so nice to come out into the mountains and just feel the grounding energy of these big, tall giants with all the trees," Ally Aslan, another camper, said. "Especially after busy city life. We need a reset."

From the same group, Brock Hedrick added, "It's just it's cool to see everybody coming together and putting their differences aside and just having fun."

The high water levels at mountain reservoirs are not enough to protect us from ongoing drought, however. They are typically small in size, with Smith and Morehouse holding about 8,000 square acre feet of water.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Mike Anderson

Mike Anderson often doubles as his own photographer, shooting and editing most of his stories. He came to KSL in April 2011 after working for several years at various broadcast news outlets.