A warning sign sits high and dry at the foot of a boat ramp at Hite Marina in southern Utah as the Colorado River cuts a new channel through lakebed sediments more than a quarter mile away on the opposite canyon wall. As the river flows through a new delt

A warning sign sits high and dry at the foot of a boat ramp at Hite Marina in southern Utah as the Colorado River cuts a new channel through lakebed sediments more than a quarter mile away on the opposite canyon wall. As the river flows through a new delta over land once covered by the Lake Powell reservoir, dried silt slumps toward the river, developing cracks up to five feet deep as layers of the sediment are washed out by the river below. The canyons have filled with silt and sediments when the waters of the reservoir rise in the canyon. 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. At rear is the Hite Crossing bridge. (Kevin Moloney for the New York Times)

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Filename: Powell_Dam_07.tif
Copyright: © Kevin Moloney, 2004
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Contained in galleries: Utah

A warning sign sits high and dry at the foot of a boat ramp at Hite Marina in southern Utah as the Colorado River cuts a new channel through lakebed sediments more than a quarter mile away on the opposite canyon wall. As the river flows through a new delta over land once covered by the Lake Powell reservoir, dried silt slumps toward the river, developing cracks up to five feet deep as layers of the sediment are washed out by the river below. The canyons have filled with silt and sediments when the waters of the reservoir rise in the canyon. 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. At rear is the Hite Crossing bridge. (Kevin Moloney for the New York Times)