It would likely be cheaper to fill up the lakes with bottled water from RaceTrac.

I have failed miserably, to the tune of 35 times, but the picture remains the same. The full displacement of the Hindenburg (bladder) is 200000 m^3, not cu ft (damn metric website). Fully sunk, the "recent" net flow from Lake Fork would take 35 hours to equilibrate one hindeburg size bladder. Therefore you would have to displace one new Hindenburg every 1.5 days. Further, presently a 3500 cu ft (100 m^3) bladder cost about $400 That would hold the necessary pressure.
Therefore, ducks are made of wood. Thank you for making me think.

BTW, for reference, I fish at Lake Livingston, don't catch more than a cold, but it is at full pool. Therefore, I will have another.

You guys are still great.

The air bladder would float? haha. And it would be safe for us to drink the water, but it would somehow be toxic to the fish. Lol.

I'm not being mean. Nor am I trying to start something, but this is a stupid idea.

1. you are assuming all lake bottoms are flat
2. who would pay to make the air bladders?
3. if they were made they would have to be very large and thick..to prevent all of the hooks on the bottom from years of fishing from letting the air out.
4. in adition to the hooks a lot of lakes have standing timber chewed off by beavers with sharp points.

and then when the lakes do come up they would have to be pulled to get back to the normal lake capacvity

crazy idea

Interesting conversation. I agree with most, not a very practical idea but an idea nonetheless. Maybe this particular solution doesn't fix our problem but, perhaps, it causes one of our resident smart guys (and there seem to be quite a few on this thread...no BS) to start carving out the foundation of a solid solution.

Here's something I have been pondering for quite awhile...why have there been no proposals to move water East and West while we debate moving oil North to South? We are starving for water from Texas to California while our brothers and sisters to the East are bombarded with floods and massive snow melts. Mainline that stuff to us and we can put it to good use, pronto...

Some smart peeps on this forum!

The surface area of the bottom of the lake is a lot smaller than the surface area at the top of the lake. Adding volume at the bottom of the water column would have little effect on the water level.

Increasing the water level significantly to be able to use facilities such as launches would result in an extremely shallow lake in most cases.

I think a small surface area, deep lake, would be more healthy longterm than a shallow high surface area lake.

Higher surface areas with the same volume of water would result in higher evaporation rates.

It would work perfectly in a lake shaped exactly like a rectangle where you essentially just raise the entire water level up. Can't happen in 99% of the lakes.

Not a bad idea, just don't think its very realistic.

I am working on a vertical watertight expandable air-lock system that would be placed in the middle of the lake that could be adjusted by solar powered cells. During periods of lesser precip the lock would move outward in 3-D and push the lake water outward to normal pool and auto adjust as needed. Also working on some Shiner Holiday Cheer!

The idea is just not feasible. And it does nothing to cure the drought. You're not increasing water volume at all with any displacement method. The bottom priority on the list is making sure fisherman have ample water to access ramps. Any major cure for us fisherman would never get funded.

You would have to develop a solution that cures lack of water volume to ever be considred. Which would solve all our fishing problems.

The most feasible ideas would be the transporting of water via pipeline into reservoirs from major river systems. If it was tied in from east to west coast there prolly wouldn't ever be an issue. But that alone is a major expense.
For a more local cure I would see it being a lot more feasible and cheaper to drill and tap into aquifers and pump into the lakes. But why would they do that and then deal with evaporation when they could just tap into them and pump straight to treatment plants which they already do. And not have to worry about the Reservoirs.

http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/groundwater/aquifer/

So if a lake is only 25% of capacity then you would need something 75% the size of the lake to bring it to level. I don't think they can make a bladder that large.

Do what you want but if you cover my brushpiles I'm cutting the bag.

Or just have everyone around the lake turn on their garden hoses and run them to the lake....

LOL

OK, how about if we just put a whole bunch of fish & hydrilla in the lake to displace enough wawa to bring the level up to normal pool, take the fish/hydrilla from the lakes in east TX that are full and put them in for example Grapevine, then Grapevine will be full of water, fish & hydrilla ... however the east TX lake(s) will then be low.

winter on the tff. pass the pipe man...

The only real solution , is massive pipelines east to west.

Think of all the flood waters over the years that have caused millions of dollars of property damage, 1,000's of lives etc.

But no one wants to fund massive water pipelines, the lines , pumps and infrastructure would have to be insanely huge to bring a flooding river down at the rate necessary to keep flooding at bay.