CANYON LAKE, Texas – As Canyon Lake continues to sink amid historic low levels, boat owners may be out of luck for the moment in getting their watercraft off the lake.
A private boat ramp for Canyon Lake Marina is still operating for customers, but there are no ramps available to the general public.
The marinas still have “a lot of boats,” said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Park Ranger Phil Anderson, and the Corps of Engineers is still doing an inventory of how many boats were moored along the shoreline.
“So, we’re still in the process of figuring out how many boats are basically stranded on the water currently,” Anderson said.
Watch a drone video of the historically low Canyon Lake below:
Once they have that information, it’s not clear what they’ll do with it.
“We are still working on that,” Anderson said. “We’ve never been in this situation before, nor has the public. So, you know, we’re trying to figure out a solution for those folks that are stranded out there on the water right now. But it’s still in the works.”
The lake was down to 882.21 feet above sea level Tuesday evening — nearly 27 feet below its conservation pool level of 909 feet, which most people consider full.
The Texas Water Development Board puts the lake at about 52.3% full.
The last time the lake was this low was in the mid-1960s as it was being filled.
The last publicly available ramp to close was Boat Ramp 18 in Canyon Park on Nov. 1. The Water Oriented Recreation District (WORD) of Comal County said the water needs to get back up to about the 883-foot mark to reopen it.
Boat Ramp 19 at Canyon Lake Marina is still open, but not to the public.
Mike Warntjes, senior vice-president of operations at Suntex Marinas, which owns both the Canyon Lake Marina and Crane’s Mill Marina, said Canyon Lake Marina has tractors and an old military truck to help put in or pull out their customers’ boats in the current low levels. However, they aren’t letting just anyone come down and take their boat out with a pickup truck.
Warntjes did not know at what point they would have to fully close the ramp, but he said they are still accepting new slip members for the marina.
Anderson said that while many people believe it’s “all the different straws in the lake” causing the water level to fall, he said only about 25% of the water loss comes from human or agricultural use.
The bigger problem is evaporation, which he said causes about 75% of the water loss.
“Typically in the winter, you know, there’s less sunshine, the days are shorter, it’s not quite as hot, and it doesn’t evaporate as much. However, as your meteorologist can probably attest to, we’ve had a rather warm fall thus far and very dry,” Anderson said.