lake buchanan dying (Llano: construction, to move, authority)

[Dude515]

Awhile ago someone was telling me about how silt is building up in lake buchanan and it's going to be a dead lake soon.

i've searched and read nothing about it.

anyone heard the same or maybe the guy was just trying to convince people not to move there/

[love roses]

It seems too big of a lake for that to happen anytime soon! Although upriver it gets shallow, so maybe far from the main body or something.

[hoffdano]

I think the lake with a silt issue is LBJ, not Buchanan.

[CptnRn]

It is true, the lake is filling up with silt especially at the upstream end, it used to be much deeper. Construction of dams slows down the river flow which used to wash silt downstream, now it settles out of the water filling up the reservoir.

I found this:

http://twri.tamu.edu/newsletters/Tex.../twr-v22n1.pdf
The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) has been surveying and monitoring
sediment at several of its lakes since the 1990s. "The problem areas are grazing lands
above Lake Buchanan, and areas where Sandy Creek and Llano River enter Lake LBJ,"
says LCRA's Wes Birdwell, "We estimate that Lake Buchanan may have lost 11% of its
original capacity because of sediment buildup." Deltas created by sediments adversely
affect navigation and lakefront property at the upper end of Lake Buchanan, especially
when water levels are low.

On the plus side, the heavy silt is a habitat for freshwater mussels that produce freshwater pearls. Texas Hill Country Pearls

Lake Buchanan looks like a big lake, but a lot of it is not very deep. A friend of mine, before building a sailboat marina on Lake Travis, researched Lake Buchanan as a possible site, and determined that much of it was too shallow to be a good lake for sailboats.