Receding water levels a concern for Gull Lake, Alta. – Edmonton | 24CA News

Residents of Gull Lake, Alta., are involved about drastically receding water ranges and try to give you inventive options to refill the favored lake.

Keith Nesbitt has lived in Gull Lake since 2007 however has been coming to the lake recreationally for the reason that ’80s. As a director with the lake’s watershed society, he’s involved about how a lot the water ranges have dropped this 12 months.

“You can look at the beach here and you can see what’s happened to it. The boats are out even further. It’s getting critical, we have to do something with the lake,” he mentioned.

Water ranges have dropped a metre since 2014, which is a big drop for a five-and-a-half-metre lake, mentioned Greg Goss, a organic sciences professor on the University of Alberta.

This development of rising and dropping water ranges in Alberta lakes isn’t new, Goss mentioned.

“We go through cycles in Alberta — wet and dry,” he mentioned. “People think the high level is where we’re supposed to be … but, in fact, (cycles) are the natural process and I think we should let the natural process play itself out.”

Norval Horner, the Gull Lake Watershed Society president, mentioned when the floor elevation was measured in 1924, it was two and a half metres increased than it’s at this time.

He mentioned, traditionally, resulting from evaporation, the water ranges have fallen a mean of two inches yearly till the Seventies.

It was then that the Lougheed authorities determined to try to stabilize the lake by pumping water in from the Blindman River.

Decades later, that got here to an abrupt halt with the proliferation of an invasive aquatic species in Alberta.

“These Prussian carp were now in the Red Deer River and the Blindman River, and the Blindman River is the source of our stabilization water. So unfortunately Alberta Environment decided to shut down the stabilization system in 2018 and they put a five-year moratorium on,” mentioned Horner.

With the moratorium up in August, the society doesn’t need the province to increase it — arguing the lake wants extra water, urgently.

Instead, it’s hoping to persuade Alberta Environment {that a} pressurized water filtration system can remedy the considerations concerning the carp, stopping each the fish and their eggs from shifting into the lake.

The watershed society employed the engineering firm Stantec to check the speculation and says it gave its stamp of approval, agreeing that filtering would block out the invasive species.

Horner mentioned getting a water licence for the aquifer shall be tough, and due to this fact is a extra long-term answer.

For now, the society is focusing its efforts on the filtration system, which might take solely months to arrange.

“We’re trying to get Alberta Environment to agree to restart stabilization with pressurized filtration,” Horner mentioned.

It’s an answer Goss doesn’t advocate. He mentioned there may be threat concerned in mixing water chemistries, in the end altering the lake’s ecology.

Craig MacLeod, whose household has owned a cabin on the shore of Gull Lake for a century, says the pumping answer doesn’t work properly in years of drought due to restrictions imposed about when water might be taken from the river.

“So long as the Blindman River is above a certain flow rate, it works. If it’s not, it’s not even a viable solution. Up until two to three weeks ago, there wasn’t enough water in the Blindman,” he mentioned.

He helps another choice: pulling water from an underground aquifer, the Paskapoo Formation.

“It’s an aquifer 85 per cent (of) the size of Lake Superior that’s recharged every year,” he mentioned.

It exists beneath Gull Lake and the water it holds is clear and clear, recharged by the mountains.

“You dig a well, you get pumps that are able to pump it, you get electricity and then you pump it into the lake,” MacLeod mentioned.

He says business has already been granted water licences to the aquifer for fracking.

MacLeod sees it as a extra everlasting answer to keep up the water ranges, however Goss doesn’t help that concept, both.

“I’m not sure a groundwater extraction regime, which would use a lot of groundwater and potentially threaten wetlands, potentially threaten the lake-water quality and the animals that are in there through either invasive species or other methods, these are all problems that could arise,” Goss mentioned.

In an announcement to Global News, the province mentioned Gull Lake is a “treasure” and its intentions are to guard the waters.

“Gull Lake’s water levels are controlled almost exclusively by the variability of natural precipitation in the watershed. In general, central Alberta lakes’ water elevations have a natural fluctuation,” mentioned Tom McMillan, a spokesperson for Alberta Environment.

Goss mentioned water ranges within the lake had been increased in 2014 over the past El Niño southern oscillation. With one other El Niño taking place, he mentioned it’s possible if nothing is completed, the water ranges will as soon as once more enhance.

“We expect a little wetter, hotter environment for the next few years and we’ll probably see a rise in water levels in some of the small Prairie potable lakes,” he mentioned.

Goss says society shouldn’t be making an attempt to engineer itself out of each downside.

“I think we have to accept that climate change is happening. We have these oscillations that we’re aware of … and they all affect our water quality and our water quantity and we have to understand a little more and learn to adapt,” he mentioned.

The Gull Lake Watershed Society mentioned is encouraging Albertans to become involved and be part of the dialogue.

They need folks to put in writing their MLAs and the counties surrounding Gull Lake.

Its membership has additionally jumped to just about 1,200 within the final month — an enormous enhance.

“It’s almost as though as the lake’s been doing down, membership has been going up exponentially,” MacLeod mentioned.

“People are realizing this is an important issue.”