Warning! Lake Mead could be hazardous to visitors' health

So far this year, 36 people have died at America's oldest and most popular National Recreation Area, an average of almost one fatality a week. Most of them perished from a lethal combination of what park rangers call "recklessness and cluelessness."

They have climbed on Jet-Skis at midnight and roared into rocky outcrops near shore. They have leapt off 50-foot-high cliffs into the lake, sinking like stones. They have fallen off boat docks and never surfaced. They have pushed their speedboats to full throttle and run aground.

There have been 22 water-related fatalities this year, prompting the National Park Service to declare that drowning has reached "virtual epidemic proportions" at Lake Mead, the body of water behind Hoover Dam and east of Las Vegas.

With an average of 10 million visitors annually - most from Nevada, Arizona, Southern California and Utah - this is the busiest National Recreation Area in the country. It also leads the national park system in fatalities.

Since 1991, an average of 33 people have died annually on and around Lake Mead and Lake Mohave, the two artificial lakes on the Colorado River that comprise the 1.5 million-acre desert recreation haven twice the size of Rhode Island.

"The fatality rate is not something we are terribly proud of, and it is not acceptable within a unit of the National Park Service," says Alan O'Neill, the park superintendent. "We've got to rededicate ourselves to making sure people can come here and not fear for their safety."

At times, the summer accident log at Lake Mead reads like a cross between "Baywatch" and "E.R.," with a steady flow of boating accidents, suicides, drownings, murder-victim dumpings, drug overdoses and exposure deaths.

"It was getting to be routine because there is just so much of it," O'Neill said. "But this year, something happened. In our hearts, we just said enough is enough."

So O'Neill did what may have been unthinkable for a sunny shoreline so close to the party capital of Las Vegas: he banned alcohol on a popular section of beachfront and closed Boulder Beach, a 45-minute drive from The Strip, to vehicles after 10 p.m.

And the park is developing a new Lake Management Plan that suggests even more sweeping changes, such as prohibiting alcohol consumption by boat pilots when a craft is under way, requiring wake-less operation for watercraft passing within 100 feet of one another, and prohibiting motors on boats operating in primitive sections of the sprawling lake complex.

The plan also calls for developing uniform boating laws at Lake Mead, which straddles Arizona and Nevada, states that have confusing and sometimes contradictory boating regulations. And authorities are considering mandatory boater education and certification as a means to reduce accidents.

Jim Holland, park planner, said the recreation area is looking at Utah's personal-watercraft education and certification program as a model.

"You have to look at boating-safety education the same way you look at hunter-safety education. That is, getting young people started the safe way early."

A new federal audit says Lake Mead's ranger corps should be beefed up by at least 33 additional officers and duty hours expanded to include overnight shifts.

"We're next door to a 24-hour city, so it only follows that we get 24-hour recreation activity," O'Neill says. "In peak season, some of our boat ramps are as busy at 3:30 in the morning as they are at 3:30 in the afternoon, but we don't have enough staff to cover the park around the clock."

Officials believe the public will support more law enforcement, just as sunbathers gave a standing ovation to rangers when they arrested a drug dealer on a Las Vegas Bay beach.

"People have overwhelmingly told us they want more enforcement activity on the lake," O'Neill says. "That is not what you'd expect to hear from folks in the West."

It also is a shift in management attitude toward Lake Mead, which has never pretended to be anything but a watersports playground for the enjoyment of the masses.

In contrast to its upstream sister reservoir Lake Powell, not even the most strident environmentalist is campaigning to drain Lake Mead. Hoover Dam was the best thing that ever happened to these parts, turning one of the hottest, driest regions on Earth into an oasis for weekend warriors.

It also made Lake Mead the black sheep of the National Park System. Agency purists cried blasphemy at the inclusion of an artificial motorboat lake as one of America's national heritage sites.

Recreational pursuits that would make you an outlaw at most areas managed by the National Park Service get a warm reception at Lake Mead.

Hydroplane boat races? They were held last month. Bass fishing tournament with a bikini contest? Last week. Even personal watercraft like Jet-Skis are welcome at Lake Mead with no restrictions on where they can operate.

"Parks are for many reasons, and sometimes we become arrogant and think the only way to connect to the outdoors is to hike into a wilderness area," O'Neill said.

Lake Mead officials have asked the National Park Service for funds to build a series of entrance stations to begin collecting admission, something that was started at Utah's Lake Powell in 1997 with good results.

But while Glen Canyon built rustic "stick and brick" entrance stations, Lake Mead has gang and security concerns that require fee stations to be more like armored bunkers.

Plans call for building Lake Mead's entrance stations using poured concrete walls and bullet-proof glass.

"It's unfortunate but it's a reality here," O'Neill says. "This has become an urbanized wilderness."

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