'Chasing the water'
Fluctuating lake levels out West require some massive marina maneuvers
Marina operators call it "Chasing the water," and concessionaires in the West consider the need to periodically move their operation to follow lowered water levels just part of the job, albeit a big part.
"It goes with the territory," said Randy Roundtree, supervisor of such moves at Nevada's Callville Bay Resort & Marina on Lake Mead, which lies east of Las Vegas on the Arizona/New Mexico border.
Roundtree has been involved in the intricacies of keeping docks in the water since he was a teen growing up on massive Lake Powell.
"I haven't kept a running tally, but moving facilities out a few hundred feet at a time is something I've done several hundred times," he said. "As levels recede on Western lakes, you've got to keep those properties floating."
Rod Taylor, another Forever Resorts manager interviewed at Lake Mohave's Cottonwood Cove Resort & Marina where lake fluctuations are more modest, said, "I've already heard early estimates of $1.3 million spent by Mead concessionaires — and nobody there has moved their marinas less than three times already this year."
A lot of factors come into play. Lingering drought there is in its second decade, and melting snow packs from the Rocky Mountains have not made up for the lost liquid of late. Growth in the Southwest, most notably to support power and agricultural needs in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Southern California, has sucked up more water than the Colorado River can offer up.
Science Daily estimates an annual net deficit of nearly 1 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado River system that includes Lake Mead and Lake Powell. Other sources are quick to point out that while Mead has dropped more than 100 feet in less than a decade, it is still enormous with hundreds of miles of shoreline.
"The Bureau of Reclamation claims we'll get some wet years and waters will rise again, so you've got to feel somewhat positive about that," said Roundtree, who relies on a healthy Lake Mead to compete in bass tournaments on his days off.
The lowered lake, with a high-water bath tub ring far up the shore, is close to levels last seen in 1965, but is still some 20 feet higher than the low-water mark set in 1937 when the reservoir was filling for the first time. Each time water levels drop by 10 feet, up to 500 feet of new beach line appears.
"The variation in water flowing into — and out of — Lake Mead causes the level or elevation to fluctuate yearly and over multi-year periods, and it has done so throughout the reservoir's 70-plus-year history," according to the National Park Service's Lake Mead National Recreation Area web page. "This is normal, and it is how Lake Mead was designed to work."
The Bureau of Reclamation believes this pattern, where the lake fills and then experiences a period of decline before filling again, will continue. Whatever the causes of the ebb and flow, the effect is predictable and costly.
Whether you drag things down the beach, or far less frequently, haul them back up the beach, expenses quickly mount up. A recreation area spokesman estimates that each 20-foot drop in lake levels costs the National Park Service and its contract marina operators millions of dollars to keep pace.
"This year alone will cost the Lake Mead National Recreational Area an estimated $10 million, plus an additional $1 million from its concessionaires, to adjust services to the lower lake level," the Las Vegas Sun reported.
"If you're talking about getting from Point A to Point B in a regular move, you're talking $200,000-$300,000 from once to three or four times a year," Roundtree said. "We can do a move relatively quickly and professionally, but we can't do it cheaply."
Fellow marina mover Taylor said orchestration of such a feat is fraught with details.
"You have to account for manpower, boats, tools, cable, anchors, and everything has to be in place, all bases covered, before you start a marina move," he said.
Here's how a standard move works: Pre-planning takes the most time, from arranging personnel availability to deciding re-positioning protocol to checking on weather conditions. Getting anchor blocks moved in advance and preparing for infrastructure (electricity, walkways) relocation takes time.
"Planning and execution has to be spot-on because once you pull the dock forward, it has to stay," Taylor said. "You can't just throw it out there and toss an anchor on it and say you're done. You have to make sure all the cables and anchors have the right amount of pull on each section of the dock."
Callville Bay's Marina One, for example, is triple-anchored to each winch. Over 50 anchors — each weighing 9,000 to 12,000 pounds — hold the dock in place (in addition to another 50 or so at Marina Two, Marina Three with a couple dozen more, and the boat rental area with another 20 anchors).
"We're looking at a couple hundred anchors that have to be re-located each time a marina moves out a few hundred feet," Roundtree said. "You've got to bring in a barge to pick up each concrete block individually, take them apart from their usual three-pack, move them out, mark them, move the next one, mark it — until every last one is in place and ready to be re-hooked into a workable system.
"While it may only take a few hours for the actual move, it takes several days after that to tighten everything up."
Both Roundtree and Taylor have made enough moves to acknowledge that routine projects generally go without incident.
The one move that did involve a few incidents was a feat never attempted before — the longest and largest marina move in the world — transporting a six-million pound marina with $60-to-$80 million worth of boats still tied up in slips some 40 miles across Lake Mead. In 48 hours. Without sleep.
The move was necessitated because the Overton Arm lowered so much concessionaires wouldn't be able to operate, and costs to build a new infrastructure were prohibitive.
Because of the massive size of the marina, it was cut into two sections, each about 500-feet wide and 700- to 800-feet long. One section was relocated 32 miles in Temple Bar while the other section had to travel the rough route through The Narrows on a 42-mile journey to Callville Bay.
Nearly two dozen houseboat captains with strong nerves were summoned to pilot through minimal-clearance outcroppings where crew members could actually reach out and make contact with the canyon walls.
"It was like pulling thread through a needle," said Roundtree, who acted as project commander. "I could tell what was going on in front of me, but had no idea what the tail-end was doing because there was no rearview mirror."
Once under way, there were no timeouts on the journey that inched forward in single digits increments, slightly more than 1 mph. "It was go and go slow, a straight-through move without pit stops," said John Schoppmann, Forever Resorts executive vice president. "We did much of the move at night because if we'd had to do it in daylight and saw how close we were to the canyon walls, we might not have had the courage to proceed."
All involved called it "The Perfect Move," accomplished because the right people were put in the right places to make it happen.
"Every move, short range or long haul, is just a reminder that it goes with the job," Taylor said. "It's a guaranteed aspect of marina ownership that you'll have to chase the water."
