Florida Lake now completely empty

Originally posted by bigyin
Too bad if you paid premium for waterfront property.

I didn't know this sort of thing happened.

Are there other lakes nearby that the wildlife can move to ?

The birds and wildlife should have plenty of other areas to take refuge, but the fish are just gone. And the people that have boats tied up to docks, now have boats just sitting in the dirt in their back yards, LOL! But, on the brights side, their back yards are now a whole lot larger.

A curious thing .............TO ME ANYWAY....!... So they say (Gore and lackeys) we are melting all these Glaciers (which I personally have in fact seen in Alaska) and that the seas are rising... ergo, if the water level worldwide is rising, how can we be loosing vast amounts of water in places like these? Places like Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon runoff are of course snow melt which can account for their volume, which by the way has been steadily declining in depth except for an occasional bumper year of snowfall up stream and their ultimate sources, but how is it that these near sea level places are being emptied? I know Georgia sucks plenty........of water, but this much? The Corp of Army Engineers........ sort of another oxymoron. There seems to be no science there, just 'good ol'boy' politics and money. Rule number one of building a house or factory or whatnot, don't build in a riverbed or creekbed.

reply to post by intrptr


I think treasure hunting out there is a wonderful idea!! I am going out of town this afternoon, and I won't be back until Monday, so I won't be able to try it until the following weekend, but I think I'll take the wife and kids out and go explore the lake bottom and out-croppings. That would be an interesting thing, and the kids will surely love it.

reply to post by Plotus


Personally, I think we are using more and more of the fresh water, while at the same time we are funneling the stormwater runoff as quickly as possible to sloughs that drain out to bigger waters. Basically we are funneling the fresh rain water out to the salty ocean as fast as possible so it doesn't have a chance to soak in and refill the aquifers. Things that used to be natural wet-weather creeks and little streams are now concrete sloughs. Things that used to be wet-weather ponds are now developed into housing or commercial real estate and the water is directed elsewhere. All that development uses extra water from the aquifer, but the aquifer doesn't get a chance to refill because the runoff is hurried right out of town so it doesn't cause flooding or problems. We have become far too good at controlling nature, but we are just learning of the unintended consequences.

reply to post by getreadyalready


People did this when Lake Lanier was 18 feet low or more. They found all kinds of wild stuff. And since it was a man made lake from a valley they flooded, there was a town and a race track that had been submerged. It was kind of spooky stuff.

Take this for instance. I know it's the opposite coastline area, but unexpected results seem the norm lately.
www.google.com... levels-as-a-proxy-for-western-snowfall%2F&ei=8MLhT6rBH4-o8QSvi4SHCA&usg=AFQjCNFTyQFb0nwRgL1R3egYNBdkZFbtTA

reply to post by kosmicjack


Where I grew up we had a humongous manmade lake called "Grand Lake of the Cherokees" or just "Grand Lake." It had many submerged towns, and all of the boat ramps were just where the roads had become submerged. It really was quite eerie, and a little dangerous. When I was a kid, another kid dove off a boat near the shore and hit the top of a submerged stop sign. The lake was gorgeous though, and much bigger than any of the things we call "lakes" down here in Florida. Wiki says Grand Lake is approximately 46,500 acres with a shoreline of 1300 miles! It also supposedly has the world's largest multi-arch dam. It really is a GRAND lake, but I totally get the "eerie" feeling you describe, knowing there are entire towns below you as you swim or ski.

reply to post by getreadyalready


I agree with the whole water run off. With all the concrete streets etc the water has no where to go and is sent down the drains and into the sea. The aquifers are just drying up more and more. Here in England after 3 months of downpour we are still technically in a drought because our aquifers just aren't filling up.

There is a reservoir about 15 minutes away from me, Burrator I think it is called, and that has a submerged town in it too. When the water level is low you can see the tops of the houses and church. Pretty weird.

If your kids come across any dufal bags with chains wrapped around them you should leave them be and call the police. There's probably no treasure in them.

reply to post by lokdog




Good advice!

Originally posted by jam321
Time to go treasure hunting.

Indeed. I know if the Rogue River were to go dry, I've got a few pair of shades I'd like to get back.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by intrptr

 

I think treasure hunting out there is a wonderful idea!!

Sounds like a great plan, and time to get out Ye Old Metal Detector. Somewhere in the world, someone is enjoying a $500 diamond tennis bracelet that I was dumb enough to wear at a beach resort. I hope you find such treasures and nothing morbid.

Watch out for that 4-foot gator. Since you've spent some time in Florida I don't need to tell you that those suckers can run at speeds up to 30 mph on land.

reply to post by graceunderpressure


what the heck is that in your avatar - creepy!!

-----------------

That's a lot of water to just go underground somewhere ... makes me wonder if there is a giant cavern somewhere below - I wouldn't want to live on this "lake" or walk on its bottom - it might just decide to swallow some land along with the water.

reply to post by MegaMind


Actually a friend of mine just warned me against walking the dry lake, because apparently the lake bottom can hold air pockets in the mud, and then it dries, and as you are walking across you can fall through the dried mud into fairly large pockets of air. I'll probably still do it, but I'm going to be much more careful with where I step with that new information.

He also told me he has an ancient jawbone from a horse that he found on one of the previous times the lake drained.

I'm thinking the metal detector might be a great idea!

Originally posted by getreadyalready
Some more pics I found online from when geologists were studying one of the sinks.

Little streams running down the hole...

and a geologist descending into the hole....

Do you know how far down these sinkholes go?

I would really like to see some photos from inside of it or the bottom.

reply to post by Sol23


There were a lot more pics on This link, and there are probably a million more out there to be had. Local businesses around the lake have tons of interesting pics, the very best ones are in black and white from way back!

Anyhow, on that link are a couple of pics from the bottom of the sinkhole looking upwards, but there are several other sinkholes as well. I don't know how far they have explored the sinks. For that much water to escape, they must be pretty massive.

reply to post by getreadyalready


That is just to amazing. Yeah for that much water to drain they have to be massive.

Thanks for the link.

Originally posted by liejunkie01
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

Here is a video I found while exploring the links provided by wiki.

www.youtube.com...

I find this very interesting because I do alot of fishing in the local waterways around here.

edit on 19-6-2012 by liejunkie01 because: (no reason given)

So Lakes turn into streams and waterfalls, which could only prove that most of the Earth was at some point covered in a crap ton of Water.

reply to post by getreadyalready
I'm in southern Colorado a few years ago we were in a horrible drought, we lost two lakes. Several other lakes got so low you couldn't land a boat but they held on and didn't go dry.

Before the two lakes completely dried fish and game asked the locals to come out and catch the remaining fish. I don't think there were any rules/restrictions, fish and game didn't want a bunch of dead fish lying around, so people were just netting them up.

After awhile both lakes recovered but it was a sad sight until they did. This happened before fracking started in my area. I wonder if this were to happen today would the lakes be able to recover despite fracking? As it is private water wells are going dry due to fracking so I think not.

I sure hope you get your beautiful lake back.

wait... is the drain down a man made thing?
that hole where the water goes,, where does it lead? does someone turn a valve on or something to drain it?

thats very odd for it to do this isnt it? just all of a sudden it drains like that?