All Main Launch Ramps Closed At Powell; Boating Season Imploding In Flurry Of Cancellations

[hatrack]

Chaos erupted at Bill West’s business in Page, Arizona, last week when he was forced to tell dozens of paid clients their summer vacations were either canceled or on hold – effective immediately. West, the owner of a houseboat timeshare company, was scrambling after record-low water levels at Lake Powell – one of the most popular motorized boating destinations in the US – disrupted recreational and tourism activities throughout the region.

The National Park Service abruptly announced earlier this month that houseboats could no longer use the Wahweap Launch Ramp, the busiest boat launch site in the area. Boats already cast out into the water were warned they had less than a week to return to land, or risk getting marooned. West sat in traffic for more than an hour last Friday trying to corral 30 of his houseboat timeshares from the 180-mile long reservoir before the final deadline. Dozens of vehicles stretched for at least a mile waiting for their turn on a concrete ramp that no longer reached the water. Even four-wheel-drive trucks were getting stuck in the mud as the Lake Powell shoreline retreated faster than federal water managers expected.

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“We sent out plenty of advisories to stakeholders about the possibility of very low lake levels this year and no one took it seriously,” said Billy Shott, superintendent of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, which manages Lake Powell. He compares the park’s regular drought notices to routine avalanche alerts in the mountains. “Well, now the avalanche has actually happened. Climate change has become real at Lake Powell.” Out of seven public boat launch ramps at Lake Powell, only Bullfrog in southern Utah – a five-hour drive from Wahweap – remains reliably functional due to a series of recent ramp extensions. But that too may soon become inaccessible. The Bureau of Reclamation predicts there is a 79% chance Lake Powell will drop another 29ft from the current historic low “sometime next year”.

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Before it was buried by Lake Powell, the sprawling region of slickrock canyons called Glen Canyon was described by environmentalist and author Ed Abbey as the “living heart” of the Colorado River. And now that environmental groups, scientists, and cartographers have access to document the restored ecology in hundreds of side canyons, they say it’s time for the park officials to no longer focus solely on maintaining water-based recreation at Lake Powell. “We are not anti houseboat, we are just pro- Glen Canyon,” says Eric Balken, executive director of the not for profit Glen Canyon Institute based in Salt Lake City. “We want the ecological values of Glen Canyon to be part of the discussion about how to move forward during climate change.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/29/lake-powell-arizona-utah-climate-crisis

[Worried2020]

1. Sad - it sorta mirrors our "it won't happen to me" attitude towards Covid-19

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Apparently - this "Information Age" thingie ain't workin' out too well for us.

W