Story by Meredith Haas
Rain here and there is not going to cut it for Lake Belton.
The water levels at the lake currently sit around 19 ft. below where they should be at.
The low lake levels have a potentially negative impact on the local wildlife and their habitat.
“The main affect is fewer resources in general,” Inland Fisheries Biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife Michael Baird said.
Baird added that spawning areas and preferred habitats that fish swim in might dwindle.
This would potentially push them into new habitats or new waterways.
Another potentially harmful impact of the decrease in water levels is the buildup of chemicals from humans that make it into the water.
Environmentalist at Baylor University, Melinda Coogan, said nutrients and chemicals that condense because of lower levels in lake systems like this could cause issues.
“A lot of these chemicals at certain concentrations are affecting the viability, but also the physiology of the organisms,” Coogan added.
Believe it or not, lower lake levels aren’t all that bad.
Even though fish could be pushed into new habitats they wouldn’t normally exist in, they might also find new water sources they wouldn’t have access to otherwise.
“Channels that were maybe in really deep water are maybe actually usable for fish now, so maybe it’s not all bad news,” Baird said.
It’s not all bad news when it comes to benefits for the community as well.
Due to the drought and low levels of water people have been able to go around and clean-up the trash that’s sat in the lake for who knows how long.
On Sept., 16 the Lake Belton Trash Getters and other community members took to cleaning the lake.
Together they gathered 32-thousand pounds of trash from the lake.
“We collected that amount of trash in three hours,” Teresa Swanson with the Lake Belton Trash Getters said.
She added that without the water levels being so low, they might not have had the chance to recover so much trash.
Their hope is to keep their environment beautiful and they plan for more clean-ups in the near future.
As for how much rainfall is needed to get the lake levels back to normal, that is not known right now.
The rainfall that Central Texas recently received was not enough. Only a consistent amount of rain would get the levels back where they need to be.
“We didn’t get enough water in the water sheds up north of here that feed lake Belton,” Arty Johnson with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said.
The water sheds would have to collect enough water so that Lake Belton could be at normal levels again.