By Michael Todd
In the fifth year of Utah''s worst drought since 1905, it is hard for some Utahns to imagine they were building dikes in the canyons and filling sandbags to contain swollen rivers and lakes in the 1980s.
'It was kind of neat and kind of scary,' said Nathan Raisor, referring to the flooding in Provo during that time. 'You could hear the water and rocks coming down the canyon at night.'
Raisor, 29, a BYU student, majoring in sociology, said a 3-foot wall of water rushed down 300 South after the snowmelt filled the debris basins in the foothills of Slate Canyon.
'It wasn''t just slow-moving water,' Raisor said. 'It was raging water.'
But this year, the floods have not come, and measurements show Utah''s snowpack at a five-year low.
Randy Julander, snow survey specialist for the National Resources Conservation Service, said almost 100 percent of Utah''s water comes from snowpack. He said it is the source of Utah''s rivers, Utah''s reservoirs and the basis for recharging Utah''s wells.
'The value of snowpack is billions and billions of dollars in terms of hydropower and hydration,' Julander said.
Though snowpack and reservoir levels are at about 50 percent of the average, some Utahns aren''t convinced there''s a drought.
Ann Mceven, for one, is a skeptic.
Mceven, 49, of Heber City and her family have gone boating at Deer Creek Reservoir every year for the last three years. This year, the reservoir level is too low to use the south boat ramp, but she said that doesn''t mean Utah is in a drought.
'I think they keep this one low and the Jordanelle high for publicity because they want everyone to think we''re in a horrible drought,' Mceven said. 'But I don''t think it''s as bad as they say it is.'
Shelly Costley, 45, of Layton, disagreed. Costley said she and her family were shocked to see reservoir levels as low as they are.
'I think it''s just absolutely tragic,' Costley said. 'This is a desert, and I think it is going to keep getting worse.'
Despite the drought, Costley said she is also concerned over development in areas once covered by water in the 1983 and 1984 floods.
Frank Williams, professor of horticulture at BYU, said Costley might have good reason to worry on both accounts.
Williams said a drought occurs when a state receives less annual precipitation than the 100-year average.
According to the Utah Division of Water Resources, Utah''s reservoirs are currently storing about 70 percent of the average for this time of year, and the snow pack level is 50 percent of the average.
By definition, Utah is in a drought.
But Williams said he doesn''t think it will last indefinitely, and wet years, like those of the 1980s, may return by 2005.
According to his research, Utah''s precipitation runs in three different water cycles. He said Utah is currently at the bottom of all three: a 100-year cycle, a 30-year cycle and a seven-year cycle.
'We have these kind of coinciding together, and that''s what''s caused us to have the greater drought problem,' Williams said. 'Over the next couple of years, I would look to see the drought slowly abate.'
Conservation will solve the short-term problem, Williams said, but there is a larger long-term water problem looming in Utah''s future: the growing population.