Man-Made Lake Receding

It seems an improbable sight: a vast blue lake deep in the desert near the Utah-Arizona border.

Lake Powell is the second-biggest man-made lake in the country. Its shoreline stretches almost 2,000 miles, following the walls of countless sandstone canyons.

But now those canyon walls show a broad white line -- the high water mark left behind as Lake Powell shrinks.

Angie Nez has been piloting tour boats on the lake since 1999, and each year the lake gets lower.

"At present time, we are 92 feet down from being full pool. And this is just due to the drought that we've been having the past six years," says Nez.

To many of the tourists, even a reduced Lake Powell is breathtaking.

"I love it! It really is awe-inspiring," exclaims visitor Judith Nybakken. "And it's a delight; the air is so fresh. And the rocks have such vibrancy to them! It's just delightful."

But Pat Clemmetson has been here before and knows what she is missing.
"I was totally amazed and kind of heartbroken to see that so much of the area had changed so much. The lake is so far down, all we've got is rock," notes Clemmetson.

Lake Powell was created in the 1960s amid controversy. The Glen Canyon Dam was built across the Colorado River taming that wild waterway, and flooding a chasm described as rivaling the Grand Canyon.

The lake would provide water for the growing, urban west: the lawns of Las Vegas, the fountains in Phoenix and the car washes all across southern California.

"Right now, the Colorado River is supporting 21 million people," explains Lonnie Gourley, an employee at the Bureau of Reclamation.

Gourley says that Lake Powell is absolutely essential to the western United States.

"There is no way without Lake Powell that you could have the commerce growth, the population growth in the United States, in the southwestern United States. It cannot happen without water," says Gourley. "And there's nowhere else to store the water."

But every day, there seems less water to store.

Work crews from the National Park Service are extending boat ramps that now end far above Lake Powell's waves.

Kitty Roberts, Superintendent of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area hopes word that the lake is half empty won't stop people from visiting.

"The lake is here, and I don't see it going anywhere," Roberts says.

The lake used to reach almost to the base of a natural wonder, Rainbow Bridge. Now the boat stops a mile away. Tourists hike through what was recently a water filled canyon.

Steve Ward works for the company that rents boats on Lake Powell. He prefers not to think of the lake as half empty.

"You have to look at the glass the other way, not the negative," Ward says. "We've been trying to put it back on the positive; it's half full."

Not everyone is confident this is just a cycle of nature. To some, the shrinking lake is nature fighting back, beginning to reclaim all the rocky canyons that were flooded 40 years ago when the mighty Colorado River was dammed.

"It's like an insurance policy: we're paying too much of a premium," says Deric Pamp, executive director of an environmental group called the Glen Canyon Institute.

"The low water is a benefit because people who often don't think about water are thinking more about water," Pamp explains.

Pamp says studies by his group have shown that Lake Powell wastes more water than it saves. He says enough water to supply Los Angeles each year is lost through evaporation and seepage from Lake Powell.

"The thing is like a giant dripping faucet," says Pamp.

Pamp believes that if the Colorado River weren't dammed, it would actually supply more water.

As Lake Powell continues to shrink, Deric Pamp hopes it will give a boost to his campaign to let the Colorado River run free.

But others who have come to know the lake as a wonder of the desert are hoping by next winter to see an end to the drought, and to see the white line disappear below the rising blue water.