Low water levels at Lake Travis impacts Hurst Harbor Marina
LAKE TRAVIS, Texas - The low water levels at Lake Travis is impacting the Hurst Harbor Marina.
"It makes it very difficult with the water this low," said Hurst Harbor Marina Service Manager Robert Nicholson. "The lake is usually a few feet lower than where I am standing at right now which would make it a level of 680 feet."
According to the Lower Colorado River Authority, the water level at Lake Travis is around 628 feet.
"This is the second time I’ve seen it this low," said Nicholson.
Nicholson says this makes operations difficult at Hurst Harbor Marina. The company has to use a marina nearly 30 minutes away to transport boats larger than 25 feet.
"It takes extra equipment, extra personnel, and extra time to be able to get boats in and out of the water and as you can see behind me with the channel getting smaller and smaller. It makes it more and more difficult for customers even to bring their boats into us to get serviced," said Nicholson.
He says boat ramps at neighboring marinas will close soon if the drought continues.
"We need a lot of rain, and we need it in the right area," said Nicholson.
"We are in record drought conditions across basically all of Central Texas. Any kind of significant rain we get is great absolutely needed. It is not going to be a cure all, basically what we need is three to four months of above average to really fill up Lake Travis," says FOX 7 Austin Meteorologist Carlo Falco.
According to Carlo Falco, meaningful rainfall can be expected Wednesday.
"We might optimistically see a couple feet of water basically running into Lake Travis so a couple feet of lake water rise," said Falco.
Nicholson says the weather is not only impacting the lake, but it makes a difference in the revenue the business earns.
"We have customers that call in a couple of times a week and say, ‘hey look the lake is going down. I’m not using it anymore. I want to pull it out, or I want to get it out of dry stack' which is our storage we have here," said Nicholson.
He believes there is more than one solution to help improve the lake levels.
"Lake Travis it is a reservoir lake, so it's doing what it is designed to do, but I think a change needs to happen because it's affecting not only our business but every business on and around the lake," said Nicholson.