Ghost Town Emerges As Drought Makes Nevada's Lake Mead Disappear

Many of the buildings used to lie 60 feet below the lake surface

A sign showing the trail to the ghost town of St. Thomas in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada in August 2015.

Nick Visser
The Huffington Post

Lest anyone forget, the drought in California and across the Southwest is still raging on. And one of the places where its effects can be observed most clearly is Nevada's Lake Mead.

The nation's largest reservoir has hit a series of troubling milestones over the past year, sinking to a record low in late June. Now, in the latest benchmark for the new Lake Mead, a town that flooded shortly after the completion of the Hoover Dam in 1938 has literally risen from the depths.

The ghost town -- once called St. Thomas, Nevada -- was founded as a Mormon settlement in 1865 and had six bustling businesses by 1918, according to Weather.com. But for nearly a century, it's been uninhabited and uninhabitable, existing mostly as an underwater curiosity.

Captured by two Getty photographers, the photos [at the link] below show the shell of the former settlement. St. Thomas has appeared under similarly dire drought conditions several times in the past decades.

The National Park Service has opened up a pathway from a parking area down to the ruins, which you'll be able to visit for the foreseeable future. Take a look here.

The ruins of a school in Mormon pioneer town Saint Thomas, flooded 70 years ago by the rising waters of the Colorado River when it was dammed to create Lake Mead.

Lawsuit Filed Against Wind Energy Project Near Mojave Preserve

Spirit Mountain from Wee Thump Wilderness. The Searchlight Wind project would fill the middle distance with wind turbines (Chris Clarke photo)

by Chris Clarke
KCET Rewire

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) have been sued over the recently-approved Searchlight Wind Project in southern Nevada, with plaintiffs charging that the federal government conducted an inadequate review of the project's likely effects on desert wildlife. The project, which would generate a maximum of 200 megawatts of electrical power, would place 87 turbines on almost 19,000 acres of public lands within view of the Mojave National Preserve and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

The suit, which also names former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as a defendant, was filed April 10 in the U.S. District Court in Nevada by the groups Basin and Range Watch and Friends of Searchlight Desert and Mountains, along with Searchlight, NV residents Judy Bundorf and Ellen Ross, and the Reverend Ron Van Fleet, an elder in the Fort Mohave tribe.

Plaintiffs charge that the project, to be built by Duke Energy, would (in the words of the suit) "pose significant adverse harm to a wide array of sensitive and protected species ... including desert tortoise, golden eagles, bald eagles, and residential and migratory birds and bats... through direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts" which weren't adequately addressed in the project's final environmental impact statement, nor in FWS's Biological Opinion on the project. The plaintiffs maintain that Secretary Salazar issued a positive Record of Decision for the project based on that inadequate review of the project's ecological impacts, and that mitigation plans for the ecological dmmage the project would cause have not been developed.

The suit also alleges that the project would cause irreparable damage to cultural resources important to local tribes, whose origin stories center on a prominent peak some miles south of the project's footprint.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to set aside Interior's Record of Decision on the project, as well as FWS's Biological Opinion and the BLM's Environmental Impact Statement, and to issue an injunction halting work on the project, which could start construction this year.

Best dam views are accessible to all

Parking Area 12 overlook from the Arizona side has one of the finest views of both the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge and Hoover Dam. (Dennis Boulton)

by Deborah Wall
Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge (Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge) on U.S. 93 offers a magnificent visual experience that is accessible to all, and there is no fee to access it. Opened on Oct. 19, 2010, the bridge spans the Black Canyon of the Colorado River approximately 1,500 feet south of Hoover Dam.

This bridge was the first concrete-steel composite arch bridge in the United States. It's now the longest bridge of its sort in the western hemisphere, at 1,905 feet. It's 88 feet wide. The walkway is 880 feet above the Colorado River, making it the second highest-walking bridge in the United States.

Pedestrian traffic is allowed along the bridge's north side, but it is accessed only from the Nevada side. Although there are stairs from the parking area, there are also a series of paved, low-angle switchback ramps. From the parking area to the bridge walkway, those using wheelchairs, strollers or scooters will use these eight paved switchbacks. Although their grade is gentle, those in a wheelchair may need assistance to travel the full distance to the walkway, about 1,000 feet.

At the summit of the switchbacks, many resting benches are available before venturing onto the walkway itself, and interpretive signs give you something interesting to read while resting. Once on the walkway, it is approximately six feet across and about 900 feet to the center of the bridge. As you head across the bridge you will find numerous interpretive signs including one that marks the Arizona-Nevada state boundary.

Besides getting a spectacular view of the dam, you can also see a section of Lake Mead, the largest man-made lake in the United States, which the dam created. The white band along the lake's perimeter, well above the waterline, is the former shoreline, showing how far the lake has dropped during the long recent years of drought.

Looking down at the lower section of the dam, you can see the location of the turbines that generate hydro electrical power used throughout the Southwest. A local landmark, Fortification Hill, can be easily viewed from the walkway.

Once they have seen Hoover Dam from the walkway, many visitors also enjoy driving across the dam itself to view it from the Arizona side. From the Memorial Bridge Plaza parking area, head east to drive about two miles across the dam to where the road terminates. Along this drive there are parking and viewing areas for the bridge, dam and Lake Mead. One of the best views is on the Arizona side of the dam at Parking Area 12. Accessible parking is available at all parking areas.

Although accessible tours of the dam itself are not available, the Hoover Dam Visitor Center and Powerplant Tour are wheelchair- and scooter-accessible. For $5 at the main parking garage, wheelchairs can be rented to use on the Powerplant Tour or visiting other locations at the dam. Tours are not recommended for anyone who suffers from claustrophobia or who may have a pacemaker or defibrillator. Call 702-494-2517 or visit www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam.

Dry Southwest slurps up surging water supply

Colorado River, Lake Mead recover; Calif., Ariz., Nev. keep rationing at bay

Las Vegas gets nearly 90 percent of its drinking water from Lake Mead, which had been shrinking over the last decade.

By CRISTINA SILVA
The Associated Press

LAS VEGAS -- Communities below the snow-capped mountains of the West are bracing against the swelling rivers and flooding that come with the spring thaw. In the drought-ravaged cities of the Southwest, however, the deluge is cause for celebration.

There will be more water for Nevada, California and Arizona this year, sparing them from having to take emergency measures, such as water rationing, for at least another three years.

The three states can thank the heavy and, in some cases, unprecedented snowpack in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. The ripe June sun is sending snowmelt into the Colorado River, its tributaries and Lake Mead, the nation's largest reservoir located outside Las Vegas.

"This is obviously really welcome, great news," said Jeffrey Kightlinger, CEO of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 19 million people. "It's been a godsend."

The water comes at a crucial time for the Southwest. After 10 years of receding water levels that threatened a regional water shortage, this year's melting snows are expected to grow Lake Mead, the chief source of water for the three states and Mexico, by 40 feet or more.

The jubilation in California, Arizona and Nevada is not a case of wishing neighbors ill, only the reality of nature's polarizing impact in the water-poor West. Brutal, prolonged winters in the north produce robust, life-giving water flows in the south.

That cycle had been disrupted for more than a decade as one dry winter after another emptied Lake Mead, which sits on the Nevada-Arizona border and was formed in 1935 after the construction of Hoover Dam. Mead and Lake Powell upstream are the major water storage facilities in the system.

Roughly 96 percent of Mead's water comes from melted snow in the upper Colorado River basin states: Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming.

By November 2010, the water in the reservoir had fallen to 1,081 elevation feet, a historic low and a mere six feet above the point that would trigger a large reduction of Arizona and Nevada's share of the Colorado River.

If that trend had continued, Arizona and Nevada could have had to begin water rationing this year.

That outlook changed during late winter as snowstorms blanketed Western mountains from the Rockies to the Sierra Nevada.

By June, there was more cumulative snow than ever recorded in the upper basin states that feed into the Colorado River, said Kevin Werner, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service's Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.

As a result, Lake Mead is expected to grow to up to 1,126 feet by December. At full stage, the lake registers at more than 1,200 elevation feet.

For public water utilities, the engorged river will buy officials more time to plan for the possibility of a future without Lake Mead, a nightmarish prospect across the Southwest. Some researchers believe long-term drought, climate change and an ever increasing demand for water could leave the lake dry by 2021.

In California, water leaders are promoting conservation programs and exploring other water sources.

In Nevada, Las Vegas gets nearly 90 percent of its drinking water from the lake. Officials are seeking a permit to build a 285-mile-long pipeline project to import water from aquifers in northern Nevada and Utah. The project has encountered stiff opposition from conservationists and rural leaders against tapping northern groundwater to fuel more growth in southern Nevada.

Meanwhile, construction problems have stalled a $700-million effort to build a new pipe into Mead.

The huge snowmelt has somewhat eased some of the pressure driving both projects, said Scott Huntley, spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. "This is the first significant elevation in 10 years," he said. "It provides us a greater cushion to fall back on."

The good news has spread quickly.

In rural Arizona, the new water means farmers won't have to reduce agricultural acreage.

"It means we've dodged a bullet," said Kevin Rogers, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau, the state's farming lobby. "That water is the lifeblood of the West."

At the Lake Mead National Recreation Area bordering Hoover Dam, park officials are preparing for new visitors and urging concessionaires to move their marinas, floating restaurants and boat rental stands to accommodate the transforming shore.

"Water has already started to rise a foot a week," said park spokesman Andrew Munoz. "We are looking at three good years of access to the water."

The National Park Service also is looking forward to replenishing its purse. Every 20-foot drop of water during the past decade has cost the agency roughly $6 million in renovations as roads and utilities were extended to match the receding shoreline.

"That's hundreds of thousands of dollars that they won't have to spend this year," Munoz said.

Gail Kaiser's family owns the Las Vegas Boat Harbor and Lake Mead Marina outside Las Vegas. For more than 10 years, the family has repeatedly released its anchors and moved the marinas to stay attached to the receding shoreline.

This year, however, they expect to move the marinas up at least five times through August to keep pace with the rising water.

"It is always a good thing to have more water," she said. "People go, 'Wow, they are getting water there. Let's go out and see what the lake is doing.'"

Boaters forced to confront muddy beaches and newly uncovered islands as they toured Lake Mead in recent years are also watching the rising water with delight.

Rick Brodeen has been boating on Lake Mead since 1972. His friends crashed into unmarked islands as the lake began to empty. The beaches became less popular for day trippers as more and more rocks emerged. It was dangerous and depressing, Brodeen said.

"I've been watching this water go down for years," he said. "To have the water going up is a lot better."

Mountain Lion Eradication Without Prior Study Rapped

Park Service at Lake Mead Accedes to "Shoot First" Intervention of Arizona

By: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
Press Release

The National Park Service will allow Arizona game officials to kill as many as ten mountain lions at Lake Mead National Recreation Area this spring without any study of the need for, or the effects of, the action. In a letter released today, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is asking the Park Service to block the mountain lion hunt until basic biological evaluations have been completed.

Citing losses of bighorn sheep, the Arizona Game and Fish Department has arranged for a predator hunter to kill ten mountain lions on the federal lands within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. While the National Park Service initially "asked" to delay the killing until the state produced some data about lion and bighorn populations in the national recreation area, the federal agency has now dropped its objections to the state removing the cats from federal land.

"This shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later stance is an abdication of the Park Service's responsibility to protect all wildlife within our national parks," stated PEER Board member Frank Buono, the former assistant superintendent at Mojave National Preserve. "Responsible wildlife management requires that both the consequences and the alternatives are assessed before coming in with guns blazing."

Among the questions that have not been addressed at Lake Mead are:

• How many mountain lions there are on the Arizona side of Lake Mead and whether killing ten cats would wipe out the entire population in the area;
• Arizona sells permits to hunt bighorn sheep but has not studied whether it makes more sense to sell fewer permits rather than kill mountain lions; and
• The bighorn herd at Lake Mead numbers approximately 1,000 and serves as a stocking reserve, supplying some 300 sheep over the past decade for other areas. Game officials claim mountain lions have killed seven sheep but it is not known if that is an excessive level of predation or what level of predation is prudent for this 1,000 sheep population.

Another issue is the deference of the National Park Service to a state claim of jurisdiction of wildlife on federal lands. Lake Mead is a unit of the national park system, governed by rules and laws requiring it to conserve wildlife and forbidding it from managing animals to increase the populations of hunt-able species, even in those parks where Congress has authorized hunting.

"The National Park Service cannot allow a state to manage the recreation area and its wildlife in a way that is at odds with the standards that govern the national park system," Buono added. "First, the Park Service supinely allows Arizona to set the take limits for bighorn sheep without consequence to the hunted species, and now the Park Service wants to be an onlooker while the state comes forward to kill lions as the remedy to the problem it may have created by promoting over-hunting."

Last year, the Park Service proposed a highly controversial rewrite of its Management Policies that would, among other things, subject park wildlife to state hunting regulations. This rewrite, however, is in limbo as a wholesale leadership shift is occurring within the Park Service's parent agency, the Department of Interior.

Plan to kill mountain lions at Lake Mead draws protests

ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Environmentalists are protesting plans to kill 10 or more mountain lions on the Arizona side of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, to prevent them from preying on desert bighorn sheep.

The plan calls for catching and killing individual mountain lions until a recent spate of sheep kills is reduced, said Jim deVos, research branch chief for the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

"Not every lion is killing sheep," said deVos, who said a start date had not been set for the program. "We're trying to focus on known kills and trying to remove that lion that is killing sheep."

Daniel Patterson, desert ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Ariz., called the culling plan a mistake.

"Lions are scarce," Patterson said. "We don't need to be killing mountain lions to protect the bighorn. We don't need single-species management, we need ecosystem management."

DeVos said the number of sheep in the region has dropped in recent years, partly because drought has reduced the population of mule deer - a more common mountain lion prey.

At least seven bighorn have been killed by mountain lions this year in the Hoover Dam area on the Arizona side of the Colorado River and Lake Mead, where deVos said about 1,000 bighorn sheep remain.

The area sheep population serves as a source for the reintroduction of bighorn sheep throughout the Southwest, including Colorado, Utah and Texas, deVos said.

Frank Buono, a 33-year veteran of the National Park Service and a national board member of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said culling mountain lions should be a last resort after public discussion and an environmental assessment.

Buono, a former assistant superintendent at the park service's Mojave National Preserve in California, criticized the park service for letting Arizona develop the plan.

Roxanne Dey, park service spokeswoman at Lake Mead, said her agency cedes most authority over hunting and wildlife management in the area to Arizona and Nevada. Both states allow limited hunting of bighorn sheep.

The desert bighorn sheep is Nevada's state animal. More than 5,400 live in mountain ranges across the southern, central and western parts of the state.

"When Congress created the park, that was part of the legislation, that the park could not interfere with hunting," Dey said.

Buono and Patterson suggested that bighorn hunting was propelling the plan to kill mountain lions. DeVos disagreed.

"In the entire state of Arizona, we sell less than a hundred sheep permits," deVos said. "This is not a lucrative business. It's not about money. We lose money on the sheep management program."

DeVos noted a sheep and mountain lion management plan was created last year. He rejected arguments that the state and federal agencies should have a potentially lengthy series of public hearings on the culling plan.

"If we wait, what do we risk? Time is of the essence," he said. "We feel the loss of 50 (percent) to 60 percent of this sheep population is a critical issue."