SIERRA CLUB FAVORS EMPTYING LAKE POWELL.

Byline: Matthew Brown Associated Press 

An awkward pause or a burst of laughter are the common responses to news that the Sierra Club has added draining the nation's second-largest artificial lake to its agenda.

The reactions express a common disbelief that the country's oldest and most recognized environmental group would take on something almost as venerable as itself.

The Sierra Club's board earlier this month resolved to pull the plug on Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border and ``let a river run through it.'' It's a plan that 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 - collectively known as the ``Law of the River'' - that consider the water impounded by Glen Canyon Dam an integral piece of an elaborate scheme to divide the Colorado River among seven states.

Then there is the expected backlash from thousands of boaters and a zealous 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.

``At some point people are going to say, hey, these guys are nuts. They're not practical,'' said an executive of another national environmental group who asked not to be identified bashing a comrade. ``But that's the risk you run when you go out in advance of public opinion.''

Sierra Club President Adam Werbach sees his organization's role, however, as forming public opinion, not following it. He says proposing to drain Lake Powell, which has become a recreational mecca and a source of hydropower 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.''

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 go up in exchange for no dams at Echo Park or Split Mountain in Dinosaur National Monument.

``I obeyed, much to my regret,'' Brower said from his home in Berkeley.

Brower said few people had explored the area, so environmentalists didn't know what they had given up in the deal. Brower didn't see the deep sandstone canyons cut by the Colorado River and its tributaries and teeming with vegetation and wildlife until several years later, until he took a ``sad'' float trip through the area before the reservoir began to fill.

Not until a visit here last month 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 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 all reservoirs lose water, contends no studies exist confirming the losses lake opponents claim.

Indeed, the Sierra Club has been scrambling since the board's vote to put together its facts and a strategy to build support for its idea. In general terms, the club contends Lake Mead near Las Vegas, Nev., could serve the purpose of Lake Powell and energy conservation could offset the lost generating capacity of Glen Canyon Dam. Mead is even bigger than Lake Powell.As for cleaning up the littered river bottom, Brower expects conservationists would jump at the opportunity.

Regardless of how strong the Sierra Club's case may turn out to be, the idea of yanking Lake Powell from the Colorado River system would be met with broad-based opposition.

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 because it violates the `Law of the River' . . . 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.''

More than 400,000 boats have cruised the 186-mile-long lake so far this year. ``It would be an insult to the world to drain Lake Powell,'' said Verna Stoddard, business manager of the Lake Powell Yacht Club.

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Map/Box

Map/Box: Refreshing the canyon

Associated Press