A local environmental group says yes.

The Glen Canyon Institute has petitioned the National Park Service to adopt a new management plan for Lake Powell, arguing that the reappearance of the canyon after 40 years mandates a reappraisal of how the agency defines the recreation area.

"Short of several years of [record] runoff, we're never going to see Lake Powell filled again. The canyons that are emerging will remain out for quite awhile," Chris Peterson, the Glen Canyon Institute's executive director, said Tuesday.

"What's really remarkable is how quickly the vegetation and wildlife are returning," he added. "And there are shifting uses of the recreation area, with more hikers going into these canyons. So we think it's incumbent on the National Park Service to manage this environment differently than it has in the past."

The National Park Service, however, is unconvinced.

Kitty Roberts, superintendent of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, was out of the office and unavailable Tuesday for comment. But in responding to the proposal in a Nov. 8 letter, she rejected calls for an environmental reassessment at this time.

"We are currently under a management plan that [Roberts] feels is sufficient, and that we are protecting our resources under the current plan," said Glen Canyon National Recreation Area spokeswoman Char Obergh.

The primary reason for the rebuff: Neither the Park Service, nor the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages Glen Canyon Dam, share the assessment that Lake Powell is in permanent decline.

"We hope the water level starts coming up next spring," said Bureau of Reclamation spokesman Barry Wirth. "Right now, the snowpack is 119 percent of normal. Our fervent hope is that the heavy precipitation and soil moisture we've gotten this fall, coupled with a healthy snowpack, will result in a Lake Powell that's going up."

According to Wirth, it will take "a decade or more" for Lake Powell to refill with average precipitation. But he adds that the timetable would accelerate with a wet pattern.

"If we get the precipitation we had in the 1980s, it will refill in a handful of years," he predicted.

But even with things as they stand today, the Glen Canyon Institute -- which has called for the eventual decommissioning of Glen Canyon Dam -- says that the Park Service should create a plan to:

* Designate and protect "culturally significant" side canyons, in consultation with American Indian tribes.

* Deal with such potentially high visitation areas as Gregory Natural Bridge and Cathedral in the Desert.

* Comply with the Clean Water Act, including efforts to clean up marinas and beaches.

* Uphold the Endangered Species Act by evaluating new habitat for native fish species in the reemerging riparian environments of Narrow Canyon and its portion of the Colorado, San Juan and lower Escalante rivers.

* Identify emerging roads and trails in the emerging areas and protect sensitive areas from the impact of OHVs (off-highway vehicles).

"The thing we're really pushing is the Endangered Species Act," said Peterson. "If you're talking about saving endangered species, then you have to look at Glen Canyon and the emerging habitat there. They can't ignore it."

jbaird@sltrib.com