Moab-based Living Rivers is one of the groups that signed onto the coalition. But John Weisheit, the group's executive director, said, "We feel it is not really a worthwhile endeavor. There are more important things to be doing than renaming a reservoir."

Weisheit said the issue is not what you call it, but how you utilize the water better to accommodate recreational needs, national parks and the environment, especially endangered species.

"The Colorado River is headed toward a train wreck," he said, "and the way it is going, no one is providing leadership."

Locals in Page, Ariz., the largest town on the lake's shores, scoff at the notion of changing the name.

"While we're at it, the enviros better get busy renaming Lake Mary, Roosevelt Lake, Lake Mead, Lake Pleasant, Saguaro Lake, Lake Havasu, etc., since these and a thousand other lakes across the country provide water as reservoirs," Paul Ostapuk, a spokesman for Page-based Friends of Lake Powell, told Associated Press.

In his letter to the board, Hatch points out only 22,000 of the nearly 70,000 reservoirs throughout the United States are actually called reservoirs.

"It is very clear to me that the group petitioning the change is a very small minority and does not represent the views of the majority of people in the affected area," Hatch wrote.

The board will make its decision Oct. 20.

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E-mail: spang@desnews.com