Editorial: Lake Mead under siege

Sunday, Jan. 7, 2007 | 7:33 a.m.

For decades now the 1,450-mile Colorado River has ended not as a marshy, life-giving delta at the Gulf of California, but as an evaporating trickle in the Sonoran Desert near the borders of Mexico, Arizona and California.

Human use of its water is the reason why. So much water is diverted from the river for irrigation and municipal use that it just ends miles before reaching its natural destination.

The diversion is accomplished through a network of dams, including Hoover Dam, which creates Lake Mead, the lake that now sustains Las Vegas.

We say "now sustains" because a series of articles by Las Vegas Sun reporter Launce Rake raises the question of whether Lake Mead, within a few decades, might also just end its life-giving run.

For weeks beginning in September, Rake interviewed experts on the quality and level of the lake, which provides Las Vegas' drinking water. He and a photographer traveled by boat to its far reaches, to document the evidence of deterioration.

His reporting was encouraging in respect to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the Clean Water Coalition, National Park Service, the federal Bureau of Reclamation and other agencies, which are working hard to maintain the lake.

The discouraging part of his reporting centered on what is making them work so hard - a drastically falling water level caused by drought, coming at a time of high population growth.

So serious is the water shortage that new federal rules for sharing the water among seven dependent states, including Nevada, are expected to be outlined next month.

Related to the shortage is pollution, Rake reported. As the population increases, more treated sewage and contaminated runoff reach the lake. And as the lake's level drops, its ability to dilute the pollution is weakened. Fish are undergoing biological changes, and pollution is the chief suspect.

Millions are being spent by the Southern Nevada Water Authority on new pipelines to reach deeper, cleaner water for pumping to Las Vegas. The regional Clean Water Coalition hopes to begin a project next year to pipe treated wastewater to deeper sections of the lake.

Additionally, plans involving conservation are being urgently considered at the local, regional and federal levels, all in a desperate attempt to save the Colorado River and its reservoirs, which give life to much of the Southwest. Few water managers expect much help from nature, as drought is projected to continue for years.

Rake wrote about Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's speech Dec. 15 in Las Vegas to lawyers, government officials and engineers involved in managing the Colorado River. Kempthorne stressed the urgency of finding solutions to the water shortage, saying, "It will take a determination that failure is not an option."

We should all remember that challenge every time we set our sprinklers, brush our teeth, launch our boats into Lake Mead or do anything that could waste or pollute our endangered water supply.