Lake Powell meeting today

Should Lake Powell be drained? Should special rules be put into effect to govern use of the lake's resources during drought?

Those are the type of questions expected to be discussed today during a public meeting on managing Lake Powell and its sister to the west, Lake Mead. Sponsored by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the meeting starts at 10 a.m. in the Hilton Salt Lake City Center.

Both lakes are on the Colorado River and they are among the largest reservoirs in the West. Lake Powell sprawls across the Utah-Arizona border, and Lake Mead is downstream in Nevada.

The session, scheduled for the Topaz Room at the hotel, 255 S. West Temple, continues until noon. Written and oral comments will be accepted then, said Doug Hendrix, spokesman for the bureau in Salt Lake City.

Comments can center on "the content, format, mechanism and analysis Reclamation should consider during the development of management strategies" for the lakes during low water periods, Hendrix said.

The future of the reservoirs drew a comment from John Weisheit of the group Living Rivers even before the meeting began. In a press statement, the group called for decommissioning Glen Canyon Dam, the structure that created Lake Powell.

Instead, according to Living Rivers, Hoover Dam, which impounds Lake Mead, should be operated while Glen Canyon Dam should be removed from the system.

A huge amount of water is lost through evaporation losses in the reservoir, the group maintains.

"In addition, Glen Canyon Dam is devastating the ecological integrity of the Grand Canyon and is creating a dam safety problem due to advancing sedimentation in Lake Powell," Weisheit said in an e-mail.

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