Drought Boosts Campaign to Drain One of the West's Biggest Reservoirs

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Page 3 of 6 Although the drought may be the most severe that has struck the West in the century that records have been kept, it is not nearly the worst the region has experienced. Scientists studying the records of climate and weather preserved in ancient tree rings, lake sediments, and fossil pollen have come to believe that the 20th century was unusually wet by long -term standards. If that's true, it means broadly held assumptions about the region's water supply, and its capacity to support farms and cities, are dangerously inaccurate. The drought of the 1930s lasted eight years, depopulated huge swaths of the Great Plains, and was the longest to strike North America in three centuries. But droughts lasting even longer — in some cases, for several decades at a time — have occurred repeatedly in the past 2,000 years, according to climate researchers. One such extended drought is believed responsible for the disappearance of the Anasazi, ancestors of modern Pueblo tribes, from the Four Corners area of Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico in the 13th century. "The occurrence of such sustained drought conditions today would be a natural disaster of a magnitude unprecedented in the 20th century," according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Paleochinatology Program. Chasing Water At Lake Powell, where the broad white bathtub ring on the tall red cliffs is among the most obvious signs of drought in the Colorado River watershed, the National Park Service has tried to put the best face on matters. "Fishing is great and getting better!" the agency cheerfully asserts in its latest report on lake conditions, presumably because the fish population is now squeezed into less than half its accustomed habitat. The Park Service — which manages the lake and Glen Canyon National National Recreation Area, a 1.3- million -acre expanse of canyons and plateaus surrounding the reservoir in Utah and Arizona — spent more than $2 million last year extending launch ramps and upgrading marina utilities to cope with the falling water level. In her latest annual report, Glen Canyon Superintendent Kitty L. Roberts estimated $2.8 million would be spent on similar work in 2004. (The entire budget for Glen Canyon National Recreation Area this year is $9.3 million.) Despite reassurances by the Park Service, and despite the fact that there's plenty of water for boats in most of the lake, tourism at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area has been dropping steadily since the drought's effects became noticeable, from 2.4 million visitors in 2001 to 2.1 million in 2002 and 1.9 million last year. Park managers attribute some of the decrease to the nationwide drop in travel after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but they suspect widespread publicity about the falling water level at Lake Powell has contributed. A decline in Lake Powell recreation is bad news for the economy of Page, established in 1957 as a construction camp for the crews that built Glen Canyon Dam. Named for John Chatfield Page, commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation from 1937 to 1943, the city of about 6,800 people now serves as headquarters of a lake - related tourism industry: motels, restaurants, gas stations, boat brokers, repair shops, guide services, boat rentals, fishing gear retailers. Lake - related tourism accounts for 69 percent of the jobs in Page, according to Joan Nevills - Staveley, executive director of the Page -Lake Powell Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau. "Needless to say, if there were no Lake Powell, there would be no Page," Nevills - Staveley said. "It would be a very barren, very dismal scene." Higher - than - normal vacancy rates, which business owners blame on news about the drought, have prompted motels in Page to discount room rates as much as 25 percent this summer, according to the chamber. Although alarming to many, the accelerating contraction of Lake Powell is not bad news to everyone. In fact, many environmentalists and lovers of the rugged canyon country believe the only thing better than a smaller Lake Powell would be no Lake Powell at all. The Concrete Compromise Built and operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Glen Canyon Dam is a 10- million -ton plug of gracefully arched concrete wedged into a narrow canyon of Navajo sandstone. It is 710 feet tall from foundation to crest and backs up a reservoir that, when full, holds 26.2 million acre -feet. In the United States, only Hoover Dam is taller; only Hoover's reservoir, Lake Mead, is larger. (An acre -foot, 325,9000 gallons, is a year's supply for two average Southern California households.) 8/27/2004