Minimum Lake Level for Marinas

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Another question, I think we all realize if the water gets to a certain elevation that all houseboats will have to be pulled from the lake. No way Park Service will allow Houseboats to be in docks if there is no launch ramp to pull them............what elevation do we guess that would be?

I was on the Lake a few weeks ago, once you get north of Last Chance it gets pretty quiet, around Rainbow Bridge super quiet. Rental Boats aren't going past Padre Bay for the most part.
 
Cookie said:
No way Park Service will allow Houseboats to be in docks if there is no launch ramp to pull them............
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Gosh, so true.....and very observant....(y)

Makes ya wonder what elevation houseboats were initially put in. :unsure:

Art Greene was launching his air boats & jet boats before our lake....but they weigh less than 1% of a houseboat....

Mother Nature could cooperate & close this thread for us....and we'd all be relieved & pleased...;)
 
Cookie said:
Another question, I think we all realize if the water gets to a certain elevation that all houseboats will have to be pulled from the lake. No way Park Service will allow Houseboats to be in docks if there is no launch ramp to pull them............what elevation do we guess that would be?

I was on the Lake a few weeks ago, once you get north of Last Chance it gets pretty quiet, around Rainbow Bridge super quiet. Rental Boats aren't going past Padre Bay for the most part.
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This is just what happened at the north end. There were contingencies in place if there was the need to pull a boat in an emergency though.
 
Cookie said:
Another question, I think we all realize if the water gets to a certain elevation that all houseboats will have to be pulled from the lake. No way Park Service will allow Houseboats to be in docks if there is no launch ramp to pull them............what elevation do we guess that would be?
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It's a good question which brings up
others. If things ever got that dire where we see the end of the Legacy Ramp coming up at 3450 would the marinas even be operable and passable at that point? Or would they have closed way before then?

There just might not be enough surface area to keep the docks and all operations going at say 3480? I wonder what the lake in Wahweap Bay would look like at 3450? Small I think. Also if PS and Aramark decided not to keep relocating infrastructure chasing the water down based on diminishing returns on investments they could end marinas much earlier. I also think it could happen to fast for them to respond very effectively.

My hunch would be that under the right circumstances and without Emergency Government Intervention the lake could drop quickly under the letter of current water law. If the lake levels were to get below Power Pool I feel like that's a big line in the sand. That after that the canyons are progressively more narrow and steep and water levels could drop quickly after that without gallon per gallon replacement inflow. Put another way below power pool each gallon we loose matters more. The next four years will be interesting, I hope things bounce our way.
 
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Rivergoer said:
Losing 7’ a month…Something’s gotta give or we’ll pass 3519 by New Year and still 4-5 months beyond that till 2026 runoff.

Hopefully someone’s got a radical Marina reconfigure plan both north and south or they’ll have to slow down the spigot, maybe a combination of both?
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Yeah I don't think we're going to be at 3538 on Jan1st like the last BOR study said. The outflow should slow as it cools off but hard to imagine January 1st higher than like 3532 at this rate.
 
The BOR “Minimum Probable” for Jan 1 is 3535. Again, we expect to be below the “Minimum Probable” forecast about once every ten years. So certainly quite possible we end up lower than it at like 3532. The maximum probable upside is more significant at 3546, that would be nice! So there is still a large uncertainty range with a lot of months to be either wetter/cooler or drier/hotter than climatically expected.

We can also look at some really recent history in 2021-2022:

IMG_0170.jpeg

Note Summer/Fall 2025 is right on top of 2021. So what happened that dismal season?

Well, the August 2021 24 Month Forecast “Most Probable” was for 3535 on Jan 1, 2022. What did they get? A bit better actually, 3537!

So we shouldn’t get too doom and gloomy yet! But still, low expectations are probably the right place to be…
 
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It looks different on paper, when you see the shoreline change by the day it gets very real much faster. To me it's all about the next nine moths. Will we get another rescue in the form of substantial inflow or will BOR have a lot of hard decisions to make.

I'm not sure how I feel about it to be honest. Do I pray for snow and a rainy spring or is this a good time for a water storage emergency to bring about some lasting change? A time to shake up the inveterate interests and slow the over consumption and over commitment that has drained our reserves. I've had enough of the sea saw, we need some change.

A country that doesn't utilize its infrastructure to its fullest isn't much better off than a country that doesn't have any, maybe worse, IMO.
 
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Marina Bum said:
I saw video of mid August where they had the internal tunnels open in what it said was an attempt to drop the temperature of the river quickly and kill off any small mouth bass.
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If that’s the case, someone really needs to understand that fish better. They thrive in northern states with temps much colder than what would be released from Powell.
 
Something is happening to the Smallmouth bass in Lake Powell. It's only effecting the Smallmouth. We also caught a zombie Smallmouth that had milky white meat.

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