Glen Canyon rising from doomed Lake Powell

Exploring Utah's Lake Powell several weeks ago, I expected to find a wide, placid reservoir. Instead, a friend and I whipped along in a brisk current flowing between 20-foot-high sand banks. Suddenly, the channel narrowed and the smooth water erupted into 6-foot-high standing waves. Our boat flipped. Flushed downstream in the cold, muddy water, we understood what recent hydrology studies have been indicating: The Colorado River is taking back its canyon.

Lake Powell will soon be no more — at least the Lake Powell that Americans have known for nearly 40 years: the green lake shimmering incongruously in the baking red desert of southern Utah and northern Arizona, a play land for houseboaters created when the federal Bureau of Reclamation shut the gates of the new Glen Canyon Dam in 1963.

Sure, the water could rise 30 feet to 50 feet by the end of next month. But it will drop again by the end of August, and keep falling. No matter what the climate, the drought at Lake Powell will never end. "The Jewel of the Colorado" will never be full again. Much of the time, it will sit nearly empty.

You aren't likely to hear the responsible government agencies acknowledging this or announcing any contingency plans. But they should. They should concede the inevitable end of Lake Powell, celebrate the return of Glen Canyon and take steps to preserve it for future generations by changing the management of the reservoir and dam.

The facts are clear — and startling. Drought didn't drain the reservoir, as commonly believed. Rising demand for water did. Simply put, we are taking more water out of the river than nature puts in.

The river has supplied an average of 14.6 million acre-feet of water a year over the 110 years records have been kept. (One acre-foot is enough for two typical southwest U.S. families for one year.) For the first two decades after the dam was completed, states with rights to Colorado River water took just 10.6 million acre-feet a year, which left enough water to fill Lake Powell. Still, that took 18 years, a period that included back-to-back 100-year runoff levels. But over the past two decades, population growth has driven demand to virtually equal supply, with users taking 14.4 million acre-feet a year.

Lake Powell has done exactly what it was supposed to do: It served as a savings account against a dry spell. During the drought, downstream users continued to take their business-as-usual allotment, draining the piggy bank. Now, having been tapped, the piggy can never be replenished because there is no longer a water surplus. Lake Powell was a one-trick pony.