WASHINGTON — Family vacationers don't go to Lake Powell to rent houseboats and anglers don't go there for the famous bass fishing.

At least they don't go to the obscure "Lake Powell" located in northern Colorado.

"Lake Powell in Utah and Arizona is well established, well-known and draws more than 2 million visitors each year," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in a letter to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. "There is little risk that these two lakes would be confused by recreationists."

Hatch's letter comes in the wake of a petition to the board by a group calling itself the Coalition to Rename Lake Powell, which points out there is another Lake Powell in Colorado that had its name long before the man-made reservoir was created along the Utah-Arizona border and named for explorer John Wesley Powell.

And besides, the group argues, Lake Powell isn't really a lake but is a reservoir created by the massive concrete Glen Canyon Dam. And it is only fitting, they said, that the "lake" be renamed "Glen Canyon Reservoir."

In his letter to the board, Hatch called that a "senseless proposal."

"In fact, I suspect that the proponents of the name change have a political rather than practical motivation — the motivation being the eventual draining of Lake Powell," he said.

Some environmental groups have been campaigning for years to have Glen Canyon Dan decommissioned and drained, saying the small amount of electricity it generates cannot compensate for the environmental degradation.

According to the Glen Canyon Institute's Web page, the name of Lake Powell — the Utah-Arizona one — was applied in the early 1960s. It was inappropriate, given there was already a Lake Powell, it says.

According to policy section 1 of federal regulations governing place names, "Names proposed for unnamed geographic features that duplicate another name in the state or nearby in an adjoining state will not normally be approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names."

In its call to members and supporters to support the name-change application, the institute wrote, "We are not requesting that maps and signage be changed immediately! We are requesting that, when signage needs replacing, when maps need revision, the name Glen Canyon Reservoir be used,"

The coalition was organized by Nancy Jacques of Durango, Colo.

"We would love it if people started calling it Glen Canyon Reservoir," Jacques told Associated Press. "Over time, maps would be updated and reprinted, and it would eventually be changed. There's really no hurry. We just want to raise awareness. It's not a lake."