By Mike Donahue

Moapa Valley Progress

Echo Bay Marina workers James Riggle, on the backhoe, and Eric Treat finish securing the facility’s walkway after the boat dock was moved. Photo by Mike Donahue.

Echo Bay Marina workers last Sunday put the finishing touches on a week-long project to move the facility’s boat and fuel docks nearly a quarter of a mile back toward the long concrete launch ramp that has been useless for much of the year because of low lake water levels.

The massive move was begun last Tuesday. It completely shut down the marina. The facility reopened Friday and workers were tying up loose ends over the weekend.

Lake Mead has risen nearly 40 feet this year and is continuing to swell by nearly one foot a day because of the massive snow pack and runoff in the Colorado River Basin, according to U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials. From a low water elevation last year of 1,081.85 feet, this week it was calculated at 1,120.1.

Officials estimated the lake will grow by approximately 2.87 million acre feet of water by year’s end. That’s an astonishing amount. One acre foot of water, imagine a football field one foot deep in water, is approximately 325,851 gallons.

James Riggle, an Echo Bay mechanic, was making a final dock connection Sunday using a back hoe in two feet of water – an area that two months ago was a dry jetty leading to a new boat launch area built by the National Park Service.

That launch area, which with all the necessary roads cost about $15 million, has been pretty much inundated by the increasing lake levels.

“It’s rising so fast that we expect this whole area to be under eight feet of water by the end of November,” he said.

The massive move, which was done in increments of about 150 feet, actually took about two full days, Riggle said. Preparation for the move, however, added the extra time.

“We had to unhook the power, the sewer, the phone and the fuel lines before we could even start,” he said. “Then we just kind of winched it back. One problem was moving the 10,000-pound anchors a little bit at a time.”