As the temperatures get a bit warmer in Northern Nevada, our nearby lakes and rivers are reaping the benefits of the snowmelt, most notably Walker Lake. On April 30, the Walker Lake Working Group posted to its website that Walker Lake is up almost four vertical feet in the last two months, and that it hoped it would continue to rise throughout the summer as the snowpack in the Sierra continues to thaw.
In early April, Walker Basin’s snowpack was 318 percent above average and the area continued to receive precipitation well into the first week of May. That snowpack did indeed turn into water and make it downstream, setting Walker Lake up for a fun-filled boating summer.
“I check the water levels every day and the lake has gone up four feet in the past month,” says Walker Lake Working Group President Glenn Bunch. “It’s been running at an excess of 1,000 cfs (cubic feet per second) every day for the last two weeks. It was up 1,940 cfs this morning,” he adds. Experts are predicting that the generous flows will continue that way for the next couple of months, but Bunch says that he’s happy with what the lake already has.
“It’s looking good for recreation this summer. The boat ramp at Monument Beach is back in the water,” Bunch says. Usually park officials must move the ramp down to meet the water, but there is so much freshwater currently in the lake that the boat ramp can stay where it’s at- and it’s even three feet deep from the ramp.
What is helping Walker Lake is that the water flowing into it is fresh and settling above the existing water, making it better to swim and play in.
Bunch says that the existing/stagnant water Walker Lake had before the four feet of snowmelt felt slick between your fingers, likely from the alkaline and minerals in it. “This [freshwater] feels good and clean, good for swimming,” he adds. Due to Walker Lake already being nice and full, Bunch expects an onslaught of people boating, waterskiing, and using the lake this summer.
“The predictions are that in the next month or so we will get three times the amount of water than we are at. But if the predictions are wrong then I won’t be mad; I’m happy with what we have,” says Bunch.
He explains that while the freshwater will start producing nitrates and things that are good for birds passing through, there is still not enough water to bring back a fish population.
“The water has to come straight up forty feet before we can put fish in it. Ten to twelve feet is good, but it’s not enough,” Bunch says. The Walker Basin Conservancy is still buying water rights to be able to help restore the lake, but it is still only halfway to its goal.
“It’s great to see water coming in like this. I’ve heard predictions that we’ll have two more winters of this, and that doesn’t make me mad, either,” Bunch smiles. “It just puts us that much closer to getting fish back in the lake.”
For more information about the Walker Lake Working Group, visit https://walkerlake.org/.
