If you went out for a walk along Lady Bird Lake on Tuesday afternoon you might have noticed the water level was lower than usual. Muddy stretches of bank extended farther toward the center of the lake. The smell wasn’t great.
Lady Bird Lake’s water level fell by about 2 feet.
The Longhorn Dam holds the lake in. Austin Water said one of the dam’s nine floodgates got stuck open, allowing water to keep flowing downstream. The utility said the cause of the dam failure is under investigation.
Mose Buchele/KUT News. Tuesday was at least the third time since October that the lake’s water levels have dropped.
Austin Water said contractors installed a temporary structure called a “stop log” Tuesday night to block the flow. It said the fix will be in place for a few months until permanent repairs are done.
This is at least the third time water levels have dropped noticeably in the past six months. In October, the utility said, ants got into an instument panel, breaking parts of the dam and allowing water to flow out.
Online data from the Lower Colorado River Authority, which controls water flows upstream, also show lake levels dropping by over a foot on Dec. 10.
The floodgates at the Longhorn Dam have been an issue for some time, and the city has struggled to find a long-term solution.
Mose Buchele/KUT News. Austin Water said contractors installed a temporary structure called a “stop log” to block water flow through the dam.
The dam was built in 1960 to create a water reservoir for the Holly Power Plant. Back then, it was managed by Austin Energy. While the power plant is gone, the dam still helps regulate water flows downstream and keeps Lady Bird Lake at a more or less constant level year-round.
After flooding in 2013, the dam changed hands; it’s now under Austin Water’s management. A 2014 report by the Watershed Protection Department found the gates were outdated and the dam needed major repairs and upgrades.
Some work has been done to the 60-year-old equipment in the past several years. The city said Tuesday’s malfunction happened while dam upgrades were underway.
KUT has asked the utility if the gate that broke has had any repairs in the last 10 years and what work has been done to address the issues raised in the 2014 report. It did not respond before this story was published.
Austin Water and the Lower Colorado River Authority are working on gradually refilling Lady Bird Lake to its usual level.
This story was produced as part of the Austin Monitor’s reporting partnership with KUT.
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Austin Water Utility: AWU is the municipal utility that provides water service for the City of Austin.
Lower Colorado River Authority: The quasi-governmental organization charged with, among other key items, regulating water policy for the Lower Colorado River--the body of water that runs through the heart of Austin. The creation of the organization in 1934--and the eventual series of dams it built--helped send electricity to portions of the Texas Hill Country.
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