The high water levels from the greater than average snow fall this past winter are impacting both our beach and our marina at the start of the summer season at Birch Bay and Birch Meadows. On the beach, the shore line is almost up to the grassy area, leaving only the beach between the grass and the playground to provide sand to set your chair and for the kids to play in. In the marina, the end of every walkway is in the water, the chains holding many bumper boards are broken leaving stalls without boat protection at the end, and a lot of carpeting on walkways and bumper boards is torn and will have to be replaces. Two walkways received serious damage, actually being snapped by the force of the ice.
The water level this year has not been seen since the early to mid 1960’s. The most recent (raw data) measurement available is 899.488m (meters above sea level) taken May 15, 2014. In the early 80’s and again in the early 90’s, water levels rebounded from earlier declines to water levels that approached current levels, then the lake level receded later in each decade. Between 2000 and 2009, lake levels dropped close to the all time low of 898.5m, and the provincial government responded by diverting water from the Blindman River into the lake in an effort to stabilize the lake level. Over an 8 year perod the diversion program pumped 46.5 million m3 of water into the lake. The diversion project was slated to be cut due to budget constraints in 2011, but it continued after cost sharing agreement was reached with the 4 municipal governments (Lacombe County,Ponoka County, Summer Village of Gull Lake, and Summer Village of Parkland Beach). The project ended a few years later when lake levels rose above the 899.16m target level. (Source: Gull Lake Water Quality Management Society)
The Boat Club had a work party on Sunday to make most of the walkways safe and useable, and they are planning to make adjustments to walkways for all 50 stalls, to keep the walkways out of the water. This work and the construction of new walkways to replace the damaged ones will take place at a work party in the next week or two.
It will be interesting to watch the lake levels over the spring months, especially through June which can be very rainy. Heavy rains in June could raise the water level even more, but if we should have a dryer spring, the level could drop due to evaporation. We may have to adapt our beach habits to reflect the reduces space available, and the Boat Club may need to do more repairs to their marina, but that won’t be a problem for our community . We have proven ourselves to be flexible, creative, and resilient when faced with challenges over the years. At least this is a better problem to have then a few years ago when we were wondering if we’d have a lake left by now to swim and boat in by now.
