Lower lake levels have little impact

Lakes are indeed running low – about 10 feet below normal – but it doesn’t seem to have much impact on businesses around the lake or on recreational opportunities for visitors.

Cindy Morris, executive director of the Table Rock Chamber of Commerce, said the lower water levels – up to 10 feet below what the Army Corps of Engineers considers normal in some places on the lake – will be barely noticeable to the average lake visitor.

“It doesn’t really affect fishing or what you’re able to do on the lake, except for the safety issue that’s there for people who don’t know our lake well enough,” Morris said. “That’s the warning we’d have: Be careful when you’re on the lake, and make sure you know the shoreline better than you think you do.”

She added that if any businesses would be affected it would be the marinas.

“They’d probably have to redo how they do business – how they get boats in the water, how they handle their docks,” she said. “But as far as it hurting their business, we don’t see that taking place if they’re able to adapt properly.”

Pat Cox, co-owner of Starboard Marinas, operates State Park Marina on Table Rock Lake, as well as the marina at The Chateau on the Lake and The Harbor on Indian Point. He said that Table Rock’s water levels, which currently sit at about 905 feet, are not unusually low.

On average, lake levels – which indicate the height of the lake’s surface from sea level – sit between 915 and 920 feet.

“We hit this level that we’re at now about every five to seven years,” Cox said. “In terms of an elevation number for marina operators, we’re concerned, but it’s not critical. If the lake were to go down to the 900-foot level, that gets to where the docks and the navigability becomes an issue. But it is a big lake – there’s lots of water out there.”

Boating enthusiasts, he added, shouldn’t have much to worry about as long as they boat smart and avoid trying to cut across points, which could be shallower than normal.

The result is both positive and negative for Missouri’s fishing industry – a $740 million industry in 2001, according to the most recent information from the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Burt Leman, owner of Artilla Cove Resort and president of the Indian Point Chamber of Commerce, said shallower water can help fishermen who need to be able to see underwater trees and plants, where many fish like to hide.

The difficulty could come from the other end of the equation: the fish supplies.

Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery supplies more than 1.1 million brown and rainbow trout annually for Missouri fish conservation sites, including Lake Taneycomo.

Hatchery Manager James Civiello said those trout, which are cold-water fish, are being doubly impacted – both by water temperature increases due to lower levels and less hydroelectric power generation off the lake.

“Without having a water exchange through Lake Taneycomo, those surface temperatures are warm enough that the hatchery is not able to stock fish,” Civiello said. “Our water we receive here is in the 50 degree range, and putting fish from 50 degrees to 70 to 80 degrees is lethal. We basically have to stop stocking until there is hydroelectric generation.”

Civiello added that other hatchery operations, such as Roaring River Hatchery, before recent rains had been moving as little as 4 to 5 million gallons of water, compared with the normal 20 million.

Other popular sport fish – including bass, bluegill and catfish – are not adversely affected by the warmer waters.