This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

You've probably seen pictures of the bathtub rings in Lake Powell that resulted when a seven-year drought caused water levels to plunge. Utah finally got a reprieve from dry winters in 2006, but in 2007 the Southwest is back in the dry cycle.

So we are happy to read that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which runs Lake Powell and Lake Mead on the Colorado River, is hard at work on a plan to better manage that water in time of shortage.

We are doubly pleased to read that the seven states in the Colorado River basin, including Utah, and environmental groups seem to be near accord on the preferred alternative that will probably become the final plan.

The seven states (California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming) submitted one plan to the bureau. The environmental groups submitted another. The bureau developed two more. It looks as though the final plan will take elements from both the basin states' and environmental groups' plans.

This is something of a miracle, considering what's at stake.

The Colorado drains about one-twelfth of the continental United States in one of the nation's most arid regions. Much of the water in the basin is exported to quench the thirst of Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Denver and Salt Lake City. The river is life for 30 million people.

So what happens in Lake Mead and Lake Powell is critical to the growing urban West, its people and its agriculture.

The plan the bureau is working to develop would define guidelines for managing the river's storage system during a drought. The guidelines would determine when a shortage exists in the Lower Basin (California, Nevada and Arizona) and how to coordinate operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead. They also would allow Lower Basin states to know when, and by how much, their water deliveries would be reduced.

Lake Mead stores water in the Lower Basin. Lake Powell stores water in the Upper Basin. Powell feeds Mead. The Lower Basin has rights to 7.5 million acre-feet of water a year, roughly half of the supply in a normal year. But in a drought, how much do you draw down each lake? Different answers have various implications for different users, for the environment and for hydropower generation.

We hope the promised accord comes to fruition.