Not going to drain, but....

the Guadalupe river lakes will be closed to all activity for 30 days beginning this week to allow both parties to hire engineers to inspect the dams to determine unsafe zones. A trail will be held in Oct. 5, 2020.

I would be skeptical about what kind of engineering company would be willing to put their reputation on the line and sign off on any approval inspection of a 100 year old dam, when there have already been two failures in less than five years.
I would be surprised if a legit company would be willing to do that by getting involved and risking lawsuits!

I think the engineering is to determine a "safe zone" from the dams. I see a big buoy line coming that will keep boaters a couple of hundred yards from the dam.

Smart judge!
He wasn't going to stick his neck out!
When have signs and buoy lines kept everyone out?

Well, you can't fix stupid.

It’s still getting drained, just trying to please the masses. When this report comes back, the judge has the info he needs to side with GBRA, just a stall tactic to keep the pitch forkers back temporarily.

Well, they will have their lake for another year any way. Next court hearing not till October 2020.

I wonder who will get sued if one breaks in the mean time and who is supposed to police the lakes (keep people off) for the next year.

Good questions. But as I said earlier you can't fix stupid. People need to pay attention and get their stuff off the water. IF a dam breaks, boats and whatever will be lost to the no water. There is no way a person can hear of the break and get his boat out before the ramps are useless. On Lake Gonzales (H-4) if the water drops 18" the only ramp is useless. It is already a job to get in and out of the slough it is on. Any boat hanging in a lift will be there for years unless the owner wants to hire a crane to lift it out. In my opinion, the dams will fail, and the time GBRA gave should have been used to clear the lake.

Then fix the real problem.....get rid of GBRA!

They have plenty of time to get their boats out of the water and off the lifts, so if they don't they are the only one to blame.

Do they have plenty of time? When is the next gate going to fail? Today? Tomorrow? Next week? Next month? Or maybe never.....

In addition, all the lakes will be closed to all activity effective beginning Thursday, Sept. 19, until the panel has reached a decision on what areas, if any, are safe for activity. Professional law enforcement, acting as lake patrol, will be added to enforce the restrictions on each lake. GBRA will partner with law enforcement officials to ensure the enforcement of the lake restrictions.

Life goes on! Hopefully the State of Texas,GBRA,and HOA's can work things out!



Side Note: Liked what the judge stated, the GBRA is under the State of Texas supervision! We already knew this! Looks like the only winners in this when all is said and done will be the Attorneys! They are laughing all the way to the bank!

Hopefully the legislature will fix the problem next session.

So I’m a bit confused here. The panel will say what is safe and when activity might or might not resume. The next court date is in 1 year, is that what you guys are calling “the panel”? If not, who’s the panel? I would think this would bug the homeowners as much as draining the lakes, almost makes it worthless to live on the water.

So much for fishing the river lakes. Lakes will be closed starting today until further notice!



Side Note: During this year long period for what I understand both sides will have their experts examine the remaining dams and will report their findings to the judge within 60 days. Danger zones will be established and closed off. The lakes will reopen on certain areas of the lakes that will be safe for recreational use. In the meantime both parties will continue to build their cases for the future of the river lakes and will present their cases in October of 2020.


Side Note: If the lakes are found to be a total danger they will remain closed and the draining to the lakes could possibly resume. At this point "Who Knows"

Thanks, that makes more sense.

The lawyers on both sides are the only ones who are really going to benefit from this. It's already proven that the dams are dangerous and ARE going to fail. When is the question. Then IF, and I hope not, someone loses a life because of this delay the lawyers will win again. I fish one of these lakes and will not be fishing it again until the dams are fixed, if they are. Instead I will be pulling my boat to Canyon and fish the dead sea for now.

All the money being spent on lawyers could be a seed fund to repair one of the dam's. Nah homeowner's rather spend money suing.

The panel are the engineers hired by both parties to decide where the danger is highest for death or injury IF a dams gates fail. GBRA is smiling over this, they say the whole lake and I'm sure the property owners are going find engineers to say only a few hundred feet are dangerous. In the end, GBRA has shifted the blame to the property owners and off their shoulders.

The lakes will be drained, and repairs won't happen in my life time, and possibly never.

Bank fishing should be good!

IF you have access.

Those folks need to think outside the box and charge a bank access fee to help offset the cost of the lawyers fees.
Set up a bait/ BBQ stand and charge to clean the fish!

I'm sure the residents would love to put the lawyer money towards fixing or replacing the dam, but doing so would still leave the GBRA in charge which would be an equal waste of money

If the lakes are closed as of today, does that mean that those that did not get their boats off the water are now stuck? Or will they make an exception for those just running to the ramp? If not, the plenty of time thing just got thrown out the window.

How is that a waste of money? Costs don't change weather they drain it or not. They would need to be drained to replace or fix the Dams. Seems like step 1 will be complete in a month or so.

The closing today is to give the engineers time to evaluate without being run over by jet skis.

I'm sure that if it is determined the lakes have to be drained, a notice will be given. Probably 2 weeks. But that is a lot better than Lake Wood and Lake Dunlap got.

That might be entertaining to sit and watch how many people didn't get the memo!

People on the lake were given warning of the Sept. 16th "drain date" to remove watercraft. This was before they made any rulings. The 30 and 60 days from my understanding are not necessarily assess any further damage, but to determine and set a safe zone to prohibit traffic in the area that might create additional stress on the dams. After the 30/60, recreation can resume as usual with the no access areas put in place. Because of the court ruling, they cannot drain the lake and no further lowering can be performed until Oct 2020.

If you live anywhere close to these lakes and are saying "don't raise my taxes, drain the lake" and are complaining about the "rich", you need to understand that if the lakes drain, the "rich folks" property values will plummet, meaning tax revenue in the entire area will drop. If you think that the surrounding counties, local governments, schools and administration will try to operate on less funding, you're out of your mind. They will raise ALL taxes to make up for the short comings. We should try to keep the lakes up and let the rich pay those high property taxes so the rest don't have to increase.

The resident know that a new dam is more than likely inevitable. At this point I believe they understand most repairs are out of the question. Their issue is two-fold:

1. These dams' intended purposes are not and has not been flood control (as strange as that sounds) and at their current state are no longer used as a viable source of hydroelectric power. Because of these 2 reasons, the residents and all involved do not believe the ~$45 million a piece dams (insisted upon by the GBRA) are necessary and much more economically priced dams could be put in place.

2. the residents (and all tax paying citizens) should be outraged with the performance of the GBRA. They should never allow the GBRA to be left in charge of any new assets built going forward, public or private

Let's get one thing clear. The dams are not a problem and are safe. It is the gates on top of the dams that are unsafe. These gates are raised and lowered to regulate the water level in the lakes. They only are used to lower lake level for maintenance of facilities on or in the water.

When Lake Wood gates failed, GBRA gave a 1-1/2 to 3 million dollar price tag to repair the gates. Soon after GBRA changed that to 6 to 9 million dollar price tag, and then after doing more engineering study decided that they needed a Cadillac version costing in excess of 45 million dollars. This is a hydraulic actuated gate. There is no need for such a fancy gate, But if they decided to repair using a gate design that was reasonably priced, GBRA cannot justify their "we can't afford it".

Other than lowering the gates in floods to keep from damaging the gates, the lake levels could be regulated by using the power house gates.

100% agree with you. Even though a lot of the attention is on McQueeney because "that is where the money is" but Woods has been shouting about the GBRA's negligence for far longer. Shame it took losing Dunlap also to bring attention to the mismanagement and corruption