Lake levels likely to keep dropping

Stephen Curran

Friday, Feb. 18, 2005 | 10:58 a.m.

The already low water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell will likely continue falling in the coming year, even as overall conditions are expected to improve, officials from the Southern Nevada Water Authority said Thursday.

The water flowing last month into Lake Powell -- a key water repository for water headed to the three lower Colorado River Basin states of Nevada, Arizona and California -- was 28 percent above average, said Kay Brothers, deputy general manager for the water authority.

There was also an 18 percent increase in the snow pack level, she said.

Brothers and Pat Mulroy, the water authority's general manager, delivered the news to a joint meeting of the SNWA's board of directors and the Clean Water Coalition Management Board, a separate committee composed of members of the Clark County Water Reclamation District and the cities of Las Vegas and Henderson.

It came as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation noted a more than seven-foot increase in the water level over the last month at Lake Mead, which at the beginning of January stood at just over 1,130 feet. The increase is due to the heavy rains this winter.

But the good news does not spell the end of the five-year drought that has gripped Southern Nevada and caused the lake to drop more than 85 feet since January 2000. The continued drought is also expected to continue to lower the lake levels and speed the need for new intakes to gather water at Lake Mead in coming years, Brothers said.

"It's going to take years of good runoff to fill the hole in (Lake) Powell," she said. "It has taken timelines that we were comfortable with and dramatically compacted them."

Measurements performed earlier this month put Lake Powell at 3,561 feet and Lake Mead at 1,138, about 34 and 59 percent of their respective normal elevations. The new intake would be positioned lower than the existing equipment, allowing water at lower levels to more easily flow from Lake Mead.

At its current rate, the water level will fall enough by 2011 to render an existing intake useless. The new device, depending on where it is situated, could cost upwards of $650 million, Mulroy said.

That impending decline means work on the intakes will need to begin this year, Mulroy said.

It's an immediate concern that underscores the need for Southern Nevada, which relies on the Colorado River for 90 percent of its water, to look for other ways to meet its water needs, as the drought has created a "critical need" to develop in-state water resources in coming years, according to the water authority.

A long-held SNWA plan would hopefully decrease dependence on Colorado River water to 60 percent by 2050, with the remainder coming from similar alternative sources, Mulroy said.

"What happened is that nature has taken its toll," she said. "... The drought is changing the reality of the Colorado River basin."

Las Vegas City Councilman Larry Brown, who sits on the water authority board, praised the plan to develop other water sources, saying the drought will likely continue to be a source of uncertainty for county leaders.

Brown praised the plan to find other sources for the state's water.

"They (the concerns) are real," Brown said. "Even with some good news, there's still a longer-term question mark."