Lake Mead drops to 1,145 feet

Friday, May 30, 2003 | 11:18 a.m.

Lake Mead hit an unwelcome milestone Thursday morning -- its lowest level in more than three decades.

Federal and local officials said the lake level, down more than 50 feet from its high just three years ago, is a function of nearly four years of drought in the Rocky Mountains, the source of the Colorado River, the lake and 90 percent of Las Vegas' water supply.

The mark set Thursday of 1,145 feet above sea level is significant because it is the point at which the federal Bureau of Reclamation, the master of the river and the lake, would cut the so-called "interim surplus" in half when setting water allocations next January.

Bureau spokeswoman Colleen Dwyer said the lake hit the mark about 11:30 a.m. Thursday.

However, the point is only symbolic because the bureau cut off all use of the surplus six months ago after California agencies failed to agree on a plan for dividing their share of Lake Mead water. Because of existing interstate agreements on water use, Nevada was included in the cutoff. Nevada and California are the only states to use the surplus, which are unused allocations from the states in the upper basin of the Colorado River.

Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said the milestone is still important.

She said the last time the lake was this low was 1969, when Lake Powell, a reservoir upstream, was filling. This time, the only things affecting the lake level are drought and demand.

Lake Powell and Lake Mead are huge reservoirs capable of withstanding most droughts, but four years of below-average snowpack in the mountains is bringing the system to a crisis point, Mulroy said. She warned that it is likely to get worse.

"We've been living in a state of virtual reality," she said. " This is a wake-up call. The lakes do not provide perfect protection. You can have droughts so devastating that those two reservoirs, although large, have limited value."

"Southern Nevada has never experienced a drought like this," Mulroy said.

She appealed to the federal government and the state governments along the river to come together and agree to resume delivery of the interim surplus to Nevada and to maintain Las Vegas' water supply.

"If the time has ever come for the states and communities along the Colorado River to realize they are all interconnected and the games of oneupmanship have to end, that time is now," Mulroy said.

The interim surplus, which could have provided enough water for more than 100,000 people, was a critical part of the water authority's plan to provide the resource for the next 15 years, by which time the agency had planned to supplement river water with other supplies.

The water authority and regional governments are working on plans to restrict water usage. Those new rules, which include landscaping restrictions and other rules affecting outdoor use, are expected to go into effect this summer.

But emergency restrictions now under discussion could have a much greater impact on residential and business customers throughout Southern Nevada, Mulroy said.

Bureau of Reclamation officials expect the lake level to keep falling. Dwyer said the level is expected to fall below 1,139 feet by January.

Dwyer said that for now, the bureau will keep up its planned delivery schedule to Las Vegas and downstream.