Federal changes in lake levels will have little effect

Stephen Curran

Thursday, May 20, 2004 | 9:36 a.m.

The longest drought in modern history has made changes by the Bureau of Reclamation in how Nevada receives its water from the Colorado River "moot," a top water authority official said.

The guidelines, submitted by the federal Bureau of Reclamation in September, include a decrease in the amount of water released each year from Lake Powell in Utah. Water from Lake Powell then flows to Lake Mead before being distributed throughout Southern Nevada.

A report detailing changes stemming from the new guidelines was released Wednesday. In it, researchers found a 12 percent chance of what they called a "minimal decrease" in water surface level at Lake Mead.

Kay Brothers, deputy general manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said the possible 4-foot decrease in the level, projected in the report, would not impact the Las Vegas Valley, now facing one of the longest droughts in its history.

"Four feet is pretty little, especially when you think about how it (the lake) has dropped 80 feet in the past few years," Brothers said. "And it's such a small probability that it (the decrease) would happen."

The drop would mean a 2.9 percent decrease in surface elevation, about 413,000 acre-feet of storage, according to the report. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, equivalent to what an average family of five uses in a year.

But because the decrease would only take effect when Lake Powell's surface reaches 3,630 feet above sea level, such changes are unlikely to have an immediate effect, Brothers said.

Lake Powell is now at 3,583 feet, she said.

"The current drought has kind of made this moot," Brothers said. "Right now it does nothing."

Lake Mead supplies about 90 percent of Southern Nevada's drinking water.

Bob Walsh, a spokesman for the bureau, said the agency began looking into the new guidelines about four years ago but deemed them unrealistic. Now, with the drought entering its fifth year, the guidelines, which are slated to take effect in 2005 and last through 2016, will have little impact on how the state does business, he said.

"Right now, given the (drought) situation on the Colorado River, this is probably not going to affect Lake Mead or Nevada or any of the other lower basin states," Walsh said. "This just doesn't have much of an impact."

The bureau in 1922 divided the Colorado River into "upper" and "lower" basins. Each year, the upper basin -- which includes Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico -- releases about 8.23 million acre-feet to California, Arizona and Nevada, the lower basin states, he said.

The minimum release, according to the Colorado River Compact, is 7.5 million acre-feet, Walsh said. The transfers have proven controversial in the past, as representatives from upper basin states say their states are also suffering from droughts.