Critics cite water waste at Lake Powell

Friday, Aug. 26, 2005 | 9:47 a.m.

SAN DIEGO -- To some, Lake Powell saved the bacon for Las Vegas' 1.7 million thirsty residents through the last five years of drought. To others, the lake is an environmental monster that wastes more water than it saves.

The issue took center stage for a few hours at the meeting of the Urban Water Institute on Thursday. The conference brought together officials from federal and California water agencies with representatives from the counterparts in other Western states.

Wade Graham, an author, "environmental historian" and trustee of the Glen Canyon Institute, a group that wants Glen Canyon Dam dismantled and Lake Powell drained, argued that the five years of drought have already hammered Lake Powell, and the reservoir is "approaching dead pool," the point at which the lake would not have any water to send downstream to Lake Mead and the 30 million people who depend on Colorado River water.

Graham said that because of the evaporation from Lake Powell, the Colorado River system loses 600,000 acre-feet annually, more than twice what Las Vegas takes downstream from Lake Mead.

Lake Powell's reserve of 26 million acre-feet could be made up through increased storage in Lake Mead, in underground aquifers away from the river, and through increased water conservation and inter-basin transfers from other sources, Graham said.

The payoff would be restoring a fragile desert environment ravaged by the 1963 filling of Lake Powell. Endangered fish and other animals once depended on the calm stretches of Glen Canyon but now are barely able to survive, necessitating costly efforts to preserve the animals.

"If you restore Glen Canyon, you save the Grand Canyon," he said.

Graham's perspective is not popular among many water managers at both the state and federal level.

Mark Limbaugh, assistant secretary of Interior, oversees the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages Glen Canyon and Hoover dams. He told the water officials at the conference that although Lake Powell was recently two-thirds empty, the lake's storage capacity "has enabled us to survive drought."

"Lake Powell ensures that Lake Mead remains viable," Limbaugh said.

In 2004 it would have been Lake Mead that would have been at dead pool, with no water to send downstream or to 1.7 million users in Las Vegas, without Lake Powell, he said.

"Obviously, crisis and conflict would have ensued," Limbaugh said.

Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which brings the resource uphill from Lake Mead for nearly all of the consumers in and around Las Vegas, agreed with Limbaugh.

She said eliminating the upper reservoir might save some water, but at the cost of 26 million acre-feet of storage.

"That does not sound like a reasonable trade," she said.