Cumberland News

[ChampioNinKY]

Just seen it on Whas11 TV news. Not good. I'd say there will be some Tourneys moved to other lakes this year.

Jerry Cole

[Bass Jr. Executive]

Seems this would present itself as a good time to shore up and or extend the bottom of those ramps that get rough when the water is low. That might be a good economic turn for some concrete/paving companies.

[SSKY]

The lake has always been around 680 for the last 2 winters. at 680 waitsboro ramp is not useable if it goes down any more. burnside island,conley,lees ford,beaver could be used at that level. If it gets lower than 680 then lees ford is the only ramp that could be used from what I know tell me If I am wrong I would like to know as well

[buzzking]

All Corp of Engineer Design and in this case emergency design are implemented with roughly a 30-40 precent safety factor. What this equates to is they are determining a "safe repair" elevation, based upon that factor of safety built in. So roughly they are looking at a failure elevation well above any elevation C-land has seen since construction. This is just a safety precaution to ensure a devasting breach does not occur. Only in the uncontrollable occurance of a 250 year storm or greater would we actually have to worry about the dam actually breaching. Its a shame about all the economic affects and I truelly hope the area can adjust and find a way to make do during the low-water period, but barring some great biblical proportion flood, there is no deathly risk at least I wouldn't think so or they would have evacuations on stand by.

As far as the fishery affects......If the KDFW and biologists would step up here and find the extra $$$ to protect the fishery, in the end, the lake would benefit. I mean, you take 20% of the original tourney/fishing pressure, an extended low water period to aide grass and brush growth, and EXTREMELY clear water conditions due to high flow, we would end up with a better lake, dont believe me, just look at amistad. Amistad experienced an extremely low water period about 10 yrs ago and look at it now. Toledo bend is just rebounding from a low water period, and in the next 5 years it will be ALL the TALK, just wait and see. The difference here is, like drew said, we are going to need some low water structure to aide in fish spawns, that is the only difference between c-land and the two aforementioned lakes. And yes it would be nearly impossible to have any human interaction to aide a spawn on a fishery the size of C-land, but if they want to have any source of revenue, other than just a frigin party lake, they better spare the dough and do the right thing. Only time will tell, but I bet they take the cheap route and the lake takes about 15 years to rebound to its normal level of **** ass fishing it is now

[pakman]

For those who fish down river from the dam many questions arise: what will anincrease in temperature and potential change in oxygen do to harm the coldwater species; trout? what will low water in the tailwater prompted by a drought spell do to the food source? If the temperature rises to levels that trout can't sustain. what will Fish and Wildlife do to protect the fishery? We all want objective commentary on the fishery not only above and but below the dam.