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Park ranger Kerry Haut stands atop a mound of cracked dried lake sediment where the Park Service hopes to temporarily exend a boat ramp near Hite Marina on the north end of Lake Powell. Water levels in the reservoir have dropped by nearly 100 feet in the

Park ranger Kerry Haut stands atop a mound of cracked dried lake sediment where the Park Service hopes to temporarily exend a boat ramp near Hite Marina on the north end of Lake Powell. Water levels in the reservoir have dropped by nearly 100 feet in the last three years. Dried silt slumps toward the river, developing cracks up to five feet deep as layers of the sediment are washed out by the river. The canyons just north of the Lake Powell reservoir created by Glen Canyon Damhave filled with silt and sediments when the waters of the reservoir rise in the reservoir. Now with low water the river is eroding those lake sediments and washing them into Lake Powell, geologist Dr. John C. Dohrenwend asserts. He is studying the creation of the Colorado River's delta at Lake Powell and the erosion and motion of sediments into the lake. Dohrenwend, a retired U.S. Geological Survey geologist, fears the sediment flow may fill the reservoir more quickly than the builders of the Glen Canyon Dam thought. This would reduce the storage capacity of the reservoir and possibly compromise the dam itself. (Kevin Moloney for the New York Times)

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Powell_Mud_03.tif
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© Kevin Moloney, 2004
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Utah
Park ranger Kerry Haut stands atop a mound of cracked dried lake sediment where the Park Service hopes to temporarily exend a boat ramp near Hite Marina on the north end of Lake Powell. Water levels in the reservoir have dropped by nearly 100 feet in the last three years. Dried silt slumps toward the river, developing cracks up to five feet deep as layers of the sediment are washed out by the river. The canyons just north of the Lake Powell reservoir created by Glen Canyon Damhave  filled with silt and sediments when the waters of the reservoir rise in the reservoir. Now with low water the river is eroding those lake sediments and washing them into Lake Powell, geologist Dr. John C. Dohrenwend asserts. He is studying the creation of the Colorado River's delta at Lake Powell and the erosion and motion of sediments into the lake. Dohrenwend, a retired U.S. Geological Survey geologist, fears the sediment flow may fill the reservoir more quickly than the builders of the Glen Canyon Dam thought. This would reduce the storage capacity of the reservoir and possibly compromise the dam itself. (Kevin Moloney for the New York Times)