Lake Tulloch won’t be drained

It started when Mary Montini mentioned to a Lake Tulloch neighbor that the reservoir might be lowered so repairs to her and her neighbor’s crumbling seawall could be made.

And agencies with a stake in the lake’s water were looking into lowering it.

From one neighbor to another to another, word spread across the lake.

Soon enough, irked homeowners, who feared the draining would damage docks, and organizers of a bass fishing tournament this weekend, who feared it would be difficult to launch boats, were lashing out at the idea.

“It’s just ridiculous,” said Danny Peluso, the organizer of the fishing tournament.

“We planned this tourney months ago,” he added. “We have 40 boats we’re going to have trouble launching.”
   

“I never asked them to lower the lake levels,” Montini insisted. “We don’t want to upset the fisherman. I’m sorry it got out of hand.”

Everyone can calm down — the lake is not going to be drained, said Steve Felte, general manager of the Tri-Dam Project, a joint agency controlled by the South San Joaquin and Oakdale water districts.

“The lake is staying where it is unless dry conditions naturally lower it,” Felte added.

The problem began when the lake was lowered in early January. Every five years, Tri-Dam lowers the water by four or five feet to make repairs on the dam. This also gives shoreline homeowners a chance to repair seawalls and docks.

That’s what Merle Holman, a Lake Tulloch resident, was trying to do when he hired a subcontractor to repair a seawall.

But the repairs were made at too steep of an angle, and the wall began crumbling into the lake — eventually bringing the Montini’s wall with it, Holman said.

And then last week’s storms came. The reservoir rose. And now, it’s too late. 

“A bit more of our yard falls in with every storm,” Montini said.

“It’s not a big deal, it just can’t be fixed until the water goes down,” Holman said.

“The water won’t go down again until 2013,” he added a moment later.

Despite her backyard disappearing into the lake, Montini just wants out of the storm’s way.

“Merle admitted he made a mistake,” she said. “I hope he just puts money aside so, when he can, he fixes it.”

Holman said he tried to convince Tri-Dam to hold off on raising the lake, but there were too many hurdles to jump to keep the floodgates from opening.

Included in agencies who have to approve such a request are Tri-Dam, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Water Quality Control Board.

“He jumped over one hurdle and then another,” Montini said of Holman. 

Then Montini joked, sort of, that she hoped fishermen don’t storm her front yard with pitch forks and torches.

It looks like fishermen will get a chance to catch a big one this weekend.

“In all honesty, the last three times we came up here, we didn’t get a bite,” Peluso said.