Provocative Proposal to Drain Lake Powell Could Make Waves
SALT LAKE CITY — An awkward pause or a burst of laughter are the common responses to news that the Sierra Club has a new item on its agenda: draining the nation’s second-largest artificial lake.
The reactions express a common disbelief that the country’s oldest and most recognized environmental group wants to pull the plug on the 186-mile-long Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border.
The Sierra Club plan has the potential of unleashing a flood of opposition in the courts and Congress, both opponents and supporters of the idea agree.
They say draining the lake could undo decades of contracts, treaties and court rulings that consider the water impounded by Glen Canyon Dam an integral part of an elaborate plan to divide the Colorado River among seven states.
Then there is the expected backlash from thousands of boaters and a coalition of cities and towns that receive electrical power from the dam.
Even fellow environmentalists are wondering about the wisdom of the Sierra Club’s move.
But Sierra Club president Adam Werbach sees his organization’s role as forming public opinion, not following it. He says proposing to drain Lake Powell, a recreational mecca and a source of hydro power for millions of people, is the perfect test of someone’s true colors.
“It’s the job of the Sierra Club to show what being green really means and it takes broad visionary strokes,†Werbach says. “This is that type of stroke.â€
One board member said it’s only appropriate that the Sierra Club, given its history with the lake, would pass a resolution Nov. 16 to pursue the restoration of Glen Canyon.
That board member is 84-year-old David Brower, the senior spokesman of environmentalism who for four decades has shouldered the blame for “losing†Glen Canyon. In 1956, Brower recalls, he was executive director of the Sierra Club when its board cut a deal with Western water interests to let Glen Canyon Dam be built in exchange for no dams at Echo Park or Split Mountain in Dinosaur National Monument.
“I obeyed, much to my regret,†Brower said by telephone from his home in Berkeley.
Brower said few people had explored the area, so environmentalists didn’t know what they had given up. Brower didn’t see the deep sandstone canyons cut by the Colorado River and its tributaries until several years later, when he took a “sad†float trip through the area before the reservoir began to fill.
Not until a recent visit here to speak on the topic did Brower see a realistic chance of getting Glen Canyon back. Brower was told by the local Glen Canyon Institute, which has promoted the idea of at least lowering the lake, that government statistics show Lake Powell losing 1.5 million acre-feet of water a year through evaporation and through seepage into its sandstone banks. An acre-foot is the amount of water a family of four consumes in a year.
Such losses should not be tolerated in the arid West, Brower says, and any of the states that jealously guard their shares of the river should be interested in recovering part of that wasted water.
Those relying on Lake Powell for water and electricity agree, but are reserving comment until they see the Sierra Club’s numbers and a proposal.
Brower says the water-loss figures come from the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the dam. But the bureau, while acknowledging that all reservoirs lose water, contends that no studies exist confirming the losses that lake opponents claim.
Since the board passed the proposal, Sierra Club staff members have been talking to water users and other groups about the idea and how it could work.
“This won’t happen overnight,†said Bruce Hamilton, the Sierra Club’s national conservation director. “A lot of organizing, research and dialogue needs to take place.â€
In general terms, the Sierra Club contends that Lake Mead near Las Vegas, Nev., which was formed by construction of Hoover Dam, could serve the water-storage purpose of Lake Powell and energy conservation could offset the lost generating power. Mead is even larger than Lake Powell.
Lake Powell exists to meet an obligation in a 74-year-old agreement called the Colorado River Compact. Under the pact, the so-called upper basin states of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico are obligated to deliver 7.5 million acre-feet a year to the lower basin states of Arizona, Nevada and California. Lake Powell, which can hold 27 million acre-feet, serves as the storage tank for that water.
“This would end up in court for a long time . . . and will cost millions of dollars to fight,†predicted Larry Anderson, who represents Utah on the Upper Colorado River Commission. “And I can’t imagine recreationists being quiet--they’ll come unglued.â€
More than 400,000 boats cruised the lake last year.
“It would be an insult to the world to drain Lake Powell,†said Verna Stoddard, business manager of the Lake Powell Yacht Club. “I can see 1,000-plus boat owners making lots of calls.â€
Another party expected to join the opposition would be the public power industry, which relies on the eight generators in Glen Canyon Dam to produce electricity for 6 million ratepayers in six Western states.
Finally, Congress also would have to give its approval and fund what reclamation officials say would be an expensive project.
But Brower seems undaunted by the apparent overwhelming opposition to the Sierra Club’s proposal, which would leave the 710-foot-tall concrete dam in place as “a monument to stupidity,†he says.
Brower has fought before with Western water developers and has scored some victories along with the defeats in his long and checkered career. He expects to follow his usual strategy of confronting his opponents with statistics. He also hopes to use films, videos and the Internet to persuade people that what is under Lake Powell is worth restoring.
“With the proper presentation, there can be a major change in attitude on big dams, all of which were built in my lifetime,†he says.
Brower says he takes pleasure in seeing the board that embarrassed him 40 years ago by approving the original dam deal now endorsing his idea to turn back the clock. But neither he nor Werbach believes the vote was for Brower’s sake.
“If it makes [Brower] feel better, that’s good,†the 23-year-old Werbach says. “But I happen to feel that all of America has lost a beautiful piece of national heritage that is now submerged.â€
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