I got into a debate the other day with a buddy about Utah Lake. I wanted to know what a few of you other anglers thought. Dredge or not?[;)]
Dedge but they never will…
What does dredge mean?
they’ll never dredge ut/lake. its been the same since tube dude was born. if they do it will only be the harbors so boats dont hit the bottom of the lake or the pump house so the watter will drain down the channel to the jordan river
Scoop out the muck from the bottom and put it some where else - make the lake deeper. The idea is that the lake is so shallow that wind keeps it stirred up thus off colored or muddy looking. By the way - I must be as old as Tube Dude - I remember this subject back in the late 60’s - I don’t believe it will ever happen either.
Been there done that !!! American Fork purchased a Dredge about 20 years ago with the intent of keeping the Harbor deeper than 10 ft. Problem with dredging the lake is that the bottom is so fluid. They dredged the harbor and found that they were sucking the mud from outside the harbor. The State Park has had the same problem when they dredge the channel along the North Dike of the outer harbor. It eventually fills back in due to the fluidity of the lake bottom. If you had a place to put it, you could put the dredge in one place and just suck till the cows come home. Another proposal that has been made to deal with the dangerous wave action is to build islands using pilings and rocks, then fill in with bottom muck taken from the lake by dredging 20 ft wide, 20ft deep trenches. Again a neat idea, but it would all run back in within several years. Utah lake is what you see, it is an “old” lake, eutrophic, and will never go back to being deep and clear. Bear Lake is an “young” lake, deep and cold, oligotrophic. What Bear Lake is today, Utah Lake was thousands of years ago. It is now in late middle age. It will continue to age and eventually it will dissapear as it continues to silt in and become solid land. Such is the nature of natural lakes, and man made ones too !!! The current attempt to restore the eco-system of the lake by removing the Carp and letting the natural vegetation return and help hold the bottom in place is by far the best attempt to return it to a balanced eco-system, but you can’t reverse the aging process. Nature rules !!
You guys are jogging my memory!
I used to live in 'ol American Fork. I remember they were dredging the American Fork boat harbor, wow I thought it had so many carp! You could see all these dead carp and they really dug quit of bit of muck too.
I was 14 years old when they did that. Scary though my brother and my friend were crossing the “dredged up” harbor(I was too scared to do it and for good reasons), but it wasn’t dry it was very very very muddy. My brother who was just 12 at the time fell off the “plywood trail” somebody made and he sank up to his waist in mud.
You were right and good post you made, if you dredge Utah Lake the mud will return do to the water flowing underneath the bottom of the lake. I never knew that.
And as always we as teenagers always heard stories about dredging Utah Lake. To get the sludge out, make harbors deeper, ect, ect…
I think Utah Lake will dry someday. I really wish they would not pollute that lake its a very fun lake to fish. In fact as a teenager was the more fun than all the stupid trout lakes with planter size rainbows. Back then thats all they did was stock planters.
Utah Lake cats are big and tasty. I’m scared of the PBC though, but the PCB is way worse in commercial salmon.
Dredge it!! If they can keep shipping lanes open in the Mississippi River, surely they could get a handle on all the sediments washed into Utah lake and probably get all the heavy metals and everything bad out at the same time.
A big stationary dredge, parked in the middle of the lake on the south end could stir up and slurry pump all the material out onto some spare land(church farm) around Elberta. If they dug out a 300 foot circle around the dredge, about twenty feet deep, then let it sit until it fills back in, and do it again, eventually it would have a positive effect. All the sediments would keep migrating to that location.And everything heavy would get washed in and pumped out.
It’s not going to make the whole lake deeper, but it would at least stay even with yearly runoff and stop the lake from filling up with fertilized dirt and going dry.
That is exactly what they could do, however, who is going to pay for it. On the River Systems, barge operators pay lock fees and taxes in the millions of dollars every year to keep the river channels open, just like Airports have landing and takeoff fees. To generate the amount of money needed to operate such an operation, you would have to charge fees out the wazzoo. I don’t think TD will pay $20.00 every time he launches his tube !! We have a OLD lake and it is showing it’s age and we can’t reverse it.
." What Bear Lake is today, Utah Lake was thousands of years ago"
Where does that info come from? From everything I have heard and read, Utah Lake has ALWAYS been a shallow valley pond.
And, while there are parts of the lake with muddy bottoms, there are still large areas with exposed bedrock and/or rocky rubble. The entire ancient lake bed is not submerged under hundreds of feet of accumulated sediment. I have been told that core samples taken during pollution surveys reveal that there is no more than a few feet of mud over hard bottom in any area of the lake.
There is not nearly as much sediment coming into the lake today as there was before dams on the Provo and other inlet streams. And, plenty of sediment gets stirred up by the wind and sucked out of the lake and down the Jordan all year long.
The harbors are closed systems, not as subject to the stirring action of wind and waves, so they do fill in faster with sediment. But, most of the open expanses of the lake get churned regularly.
I know you have been around Utah Lake at least as long as I have. Are you aware of any published studies that validate the claims of a formerly deep and pristine lake?
." What Bear Lake is today, Utah Lake was thousands of years ago"
Where does that info come from? From everything I have heard and read, Utah Lake has ALWAYS been a shallow valley pond.
Right you are ol’ buddy. It doesnt take a lot of imagination to look at the valley, and the slopes involved, to figure out the lake sets flat in the bottom of a shallow sloping bowl. That condition has existed since long before Lake Bonnivlle.
The base rock bottom of UL is Lime stone and that itself explains how long the bottom of the lake has been basically in its current location.
If everyone would run down to their nearest Pet-Marts and grab a of Aquatic plants we could settle that mud bottom down in a week [;)]
"If everyone would run down to their nearest Pet-Marts and grab a of Aquatic plants we could settle that mud bottom down in a week "
Don’t forget the CARP-BE-GONE spray. Until those scaly rootin’ pigs are out of Utah Lake, the new plants wouldn’t have much of a chance.
In fact, we have the carp to thank for a lot of the mud and sediment that gets stirred up in the lake. Once they are gone (not likely), the whole lake would be better off.
Gonna tune up the carp bow pretty soon and do my part to remove a few.
They should make Kennocot/ Rio Tinto dredge the lake and fill up their giant crater they created at the same time. Two birds with one stone and reverse some of the mess man has created in this valley. It is not like the heavy metals are going to hurt anything in that old copper pit.
Haw come on, dont you like to be able to wade across the backs of carp to your honey holes at UL? LOL!
That is a big big lake and doing anything is going to cost a lot of money, and probably will not kill all the little carplets. I really do not know what they could do, but I would like to see them try something. Has anyone heard of using a genetically engineered disease for those carp?
I was kind of thinking along those lines too. But genetically engineering a disease for killing a certian type of fish would be extremely hard to do, not to mention PETA would have a hay-day with it. But I wouldnt mind it one bit! In fact I’d deliver it myself if need be. Into every lake in Utah that has the stupid things in it.
I’m convinced there is no way to really kill them all off, short of draining and starting over. Even when put in with pike and the such they thrive. Maybe we need bigger fish, and train them to only eat carp? Oh thats my best idea all day!
They should make Kennocot/ Rio Tinto dredge the lake and fill up their giant crater they created at the same time. Two birds with one stone and reverse some of the mess man has created in this valley. It is not like the heavy metals are going to hurt anything in that old copper pit.
Better yet, fill the crater with water and dump some forage and game fish in it. It gets done back east.
Carp are the equivalent of aquatic cockroaches. They multiply by the millions and they are almost immune to all measures used to eradicate them. I am sure there has been plenty of research on trying to find a carp-specific poison or biological weapon. Like cockroaches, carp could probably survive a nuclear or chemical holocaust that would remove all other species from earth.
**My belief is that if enough effort were exerted, by anglers and paid exterminators to substantially reduce the current biomass of carp, it WOULD make a difference. Right now there is such a tremendous imbalance in the ecosystem that carp simply overpower everything else in the lake. If their numbers could ever be brought down into a “manageable” level it is feasible that the predators would have a shot at keeping them in check. **
Look at Starvation, Deer Creek, Willard Bay and Flaming Gorge. All of those lakes have a lot of predators and the carp ratio is not unbearable. Still too many, but not like Utah Lake…or like Yuba is getting to be. Give the carp more than an even break and they have runaway population growth.
What is the “break-even” point for a manageable population? I don’t know. I just keep catchin’ and killin’ as many “toothless golden walleyes” as I can. We don’t have to kill them all, but every egg-fat female we remove HAS to make a difference.
Tubedude,
Your plan sound reasonable. I am really only familiar with deer creek and a little bit with willard. Deer creek seems to be quite a different environment than UL. Willard is perhaps comparable. Do you think that starvation compares well to UL? Does anyone have any estimates on how much something like this could cost?
Dave
What happened to all the archery carp competitions they used to have their and at other lakes across the state? I would be very interested in putting a dent in the populations that have pounded on the fisheries and habitats. I just dont know what to do to go about getting involved.
Maybe BFT could have a carp depravation contest
I have heard of some netting projects also but it seems that the dang carp are not letting up.