After Drought, Waters In Lake Mead Start To Rise

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Lake Mead is rising. For the first time in more than a decade, the water level in the country's largest reservoir is going up. Heavy winter snowfall in the mountains of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado is melting and flowing into the Colorado River, which feeds Lake Mead.

MICHELE NORRIS, host:

Lake Mead is rising. For the first time in more than a decade, the water level in the country's largest reservoir is going up. Heavy winter snowfall in the mountains of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado is melting and flowing into the Colorado River, which feeds Lake Mead.

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TED ROBBINS: The sound of moving water is usually soothing. When it's rising water lapping at the dock of the Las Vegas Boat Harbor, though, it's practically cause for celebration.

Ms. GAIL KLEIN (Manager, Las Vegas Boat Harbor): It's a wonderful thing.

ROBBINS: Gail Klein manages the harbor, which is really a good 20 miles from Las Vegas. It's a floating marina with a restaurant, gas station, and slips filled with more than a thousand boats. Everything has to move with the lake level. Down and out when it falls, up and in towards the shore when it rises. For a long time, until just two months ago, it's only gone out.

Ms. KLEIN: That's the first time we moved the marina in, versus following lower lake levels since 1997. And we all got together and thought do we remember how to do this?

ROBBINS: And?

Ms. KLEIN: Yeah, yeah it always comes back.

ROBBINS: Although it's not cheap, Klein says it'll cost close to a million dollars to move the whole thing a number of times before the lake stops rising. But she's not complaining. Who in the arid Southwest complains about more water? And her business is - sorry - staying afloat.

Article continues: http://www.npr.org/2011/07/18/138484216/after-years-for-drought-lake-mead-waters-start-to-rise?ft=1&f=1025