- An unexpected sight greets the holidaymaker out for a
gentle cruise on the 186-mile Lake Powell in Arizona. A mile or so upriver
from the Glen Canyon dam stand red and green channel markers to guide those
on the water. But the signs planted in the riverbank are of little use
today: thanks to a drought which is entering its sixth year, the lake's
water level has dropped by 40 metres (130ft), leaving the signs on each
bank stranded at the top of a cliff. Steve Ward, who works for a tourism
company, steers his motorboat into a bay and points to an island across
the sparkling blue water. "Normally we'd go across there to leave
the bay," he says, "Right now we can't, because there's land
in the way."
-
- That land, like the many newly emerged beaches dotted
around the lake, would normally be under 30 metres of water.
-
- Lake Powell, the second largest reservoir in the US,
which fills the canyons straddling the border between Utah and Arizona,
is an important link in the chain of water supply drawn from the Colorado
river. So the falling water levels are not just a story of a tourist attraction
facing tough times, but an environmental problem that may have a fundamental
impact on life in seven of the states of the western US, notably the thirsty
states of California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.
-
- That supply keeps agriculture in the south-west of the
US irrigated, provides for the needs of industry, keeps lawns sprinkled
and green, and enables people to wash their cars and themselves. Without
the water from the Colorado river most of the west would revert to its
natural state: a desert.
-
- This year the drought has hit home, causing alarm among
the community of scientists, technicians and bureaucrats whose job it is
to slake the thirst of the west.
-
- "If the drought continues it will force the states
to sit down and take some truly tough decisions," says Ken Rice, the
manager of the dam, who works for the government's bureau of reclamation.
"It really depends on what mother nature does over the next few years."
-
- The threat of the drought is made tangible by the declining
lake levels. Further down the Colorado river near Las Vegas, at Lake Mead
- the biggest reservoir in the US, created by the Hoover dam - the remains
of a once submerged village are starting to emerge.
-
- At Lake Powell, the "bathtub ring", a white
mark left on the orange sandstone of the canyon by the receding lake, provides
a jarring reminder of where the water should be, and a handy indicator
that the lake is just 38% full, with a level of 1,088 metres.
-
- When the lake drops to 1,064 metres, it will have reached
the minimum level at which the two power stations that use its water can
operate safely, and the lake will effectively be decomissioned.
-
- Pictures of the Lake Powell Lodge at Wahweap - literally
"bitter water", the lake's largest resort - show it perched on
the shore, water lapping at its foundations. Today it is a third of a mile
from the water's edge.
-
- The concrete launch ramp built to enable the thousands
of holidaymakers who come to Wahweap each year to put their houseboats,
dinghies, speedboats and jetskis on to the lake stops about 10 metres short
of the water. It has been extended twice in the past year, and in August
a system of welded steel tubes was laid into the water to provide additional
access. The total cost of bringing the tourists back to the water's edge
at Wahweap has been $5m (£2.8m).
-
- But with the level of the lake falling by 53cm (20in)
a week, unless there is significant rainfall between now and the spring,
and unless the snowmelt that contributes most of the water increases on
recent years, the ramp will have to be extended again for next year.
-
- "We've been releasing more water than has been coming
in, due to our legal obligations," says Mr Rice, turning to look out
of his office window on top of the dam.
-
- The legal obligations explain why the drought could have
a profound impact on the way water is used as far away as California.
-
- The Colorado river is the subject of a complex series
of contracts and compacts dating back to 1922. Known as the law of the
river, they establish a hierarchy of demand on the Colorado's water, with
California having the greatest say.
-
- Should the water start to dry up and real cuts in supply
be made, other states will lose their supply before California, which receives
some 14% of its water from the river. Water trading and legal fees are
the most likely outcome of any attempt to implement the law of the river.
-
- "Our role is to make the states understand that
if they don't get their act together, we will step in," says Bennett
Raley, assistant secretary for water and science at the US interior department,
which oversees the bureau of reclamation.
-
- Mr Raley, who has been going to water meetings since
he was 11, says the drought should make people change the way they think
about and use water, and that farming in the west should look both at its
practices and at its choice of crops.
-
- "People say that the west has obviously grown out
of its water supply and must stop growing," he says. "That's
reasonable on the face of it, but not true. The issue in time of drought
is what will be the relationship between irrigated agriculture and the
cities. The secretary of the interior does not have the legal authority
to say, 'Needs have changed, we're going to reallocate water from agriculture
to urban use.' The view of this administration is that the market is the
best way to make those changes."
-
- But some argue that the reservoir should simply be allowed
to drain away. "Glen Canyon dam and Lake Powell are unnecessary and
counterproductive for the water needs of the west," says Chris Peterson
of the Glen Canyon Institute.
-
- "They've destroyed one of the most beautiful places
in the world. We're in a water management crisis. We're dealing with a
system that is 50 years old. It's like a 57 Chevy.
-
- "Since that time, America has started to appreciate
its wildlife, and we've also realised that there are better ways of storing
water. We live in a desert. There's plenty of water - the question is who
gets it and how is it stored."
-
- He predicts that if the drought continues (and some say
that it is not a drought, but a return to normal conditions after a 50-year
wet period), any attempt to enact the law of the river will become mired
in litigation.
-
- Mr Ward starts to climb the steep slope from the water's
edge to the latest temporary car park. "I choose to be optimistic
and tell people there's things we haven't seen for 30 years, come and see
them before they're covered up," he says.
-
- "I don't consider this drought to be a danger to
Lake Powell as much as it is to the west of America. If this is a 30-year
drought, things are going to have to change all over America."
-
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1324367,00.html
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