Lake Mead's master plan to get facelift

National park officials are afraid that if they're not careful, in 10 years they'll look out on the Lake Mead shoreline and see Coney Island.

So planners for the Lake Mead National Recreation Area are revising their master plan to better manage the park visited by about 10 million people each year. It will be the first update to the plan since 1983.

Even though just 13 percent of the recreational area is water, it's the lakes set among rugged mountains, desert washes, sheer cliffs and colorful rock formations that draw most people to the area, Alan O'Neill, the park's superintendent, said as he looked over proposals for a master plan.

Starting next month, five options will be unveiled at public meetings so that people who use the area can help decide on the best uses, O'Neill said. Also on the drawing board is a possible certification program for underage boaters using personal watercraft.

"This is a very special area," O'Neill said, adding that 1.3 million acres of land -- twice the size of Rhode Island -- surround 200,000 acres of water in Lake Mead and Lake Mohave.

"It's a unit of the National Park Service. We have to find a balance. If we don't do something and get ahead of the curve, it's going to be harder to manage later."

O'Neill, superintendent of the recreation area since 1987, said the park service's mission "first and foremost" is to protect the park's resources and recreational uses.

"To allow it to degrade to a Coney Island is not what we want to see happen," he said.

But it could happen in about 10 years if the area is not managed properly, he said. The National Park Service has been managing the area since Lake Mead was created in 1936. Lake Mohave was added in 1953.

While getting input from the people who use the area is important, O'Neill said planners also must balance nature into the equation. Lake Mead is home to bighorn sheep, mule deer, coyotes, kit foxes, bobcats, ringtail cats, desert tortoises, lizards, snakes and a wealth of bird species.

"It's not just about people," O'Neill said. "We have to make sure that the sheep and the native fish are protected. We have native trees along the Colorado River. And there are peregrine falcon roosts. When we talk about the needs of people, we have to think of them in the context of nature."

Fifty-two percent of the park is in Arizona, so park planners are working with officials there as well, Jim Holland, a park planner, said.

The challenge for planners is to provide for primitive as well as more developed uses of the park, Holland said, "if that's what people want." Hammond is the lead planner working on the master plan.

He cited Government Wash, with its boat landing, as "an unregulated use" that's operating at full capacity. Boulder Beach, a popular sunbathing and swimming area, also is crowded, he said.

"To provide the same recreation opportunities in all places (on the lake) is wrong," Holland said. "That's the real challenge. If we don't, 10 years from now it's all going to look like Boulder Beach."

Holland has drawn up five classification maps, ranging from a primitive setting to an urban park setting, to show the public beginning in mid-July.

A semi-primitive setting would include keeping personal watercraft out of remote coves and out of Black Canyon on the Colorado River, but that will ultimately be up to the public, he said.

Personal watercraft are forbidden on the California side of lakes and rivers along the Arizona-California line. And a new California law also makes it illegal for those younger than 16 to operate a watercraft with more than 15 horsepower or a sailboat longer than 30 feet.

In a survey taken by rangers over a 16-month period in 1993-94, users of the area said they wanted to see greater enforcement of laws.

"People don't want to be subjected to the harassment of some other users," O'Neill said. "People want to see more enforcement."

Pete Mazzola, a National Park Service volunteer who directs launch traffic on weekends, described himself as "a boater who won't go out on the lake on weekends because the launches are too crowded."

Mazzola said he welcomes a management plan for the area.

"If you're looking at where we will be 10 years from now, it could be a major catastrophe out there," he said. "And without sufficient education of the boaters, they start violating other people's rights.

"I definitely think they need to take a look at the whole concept about what certain areas will be used for, such as limiting or dedicating an area to certain boats."

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