2008 Woodie Awards
Low water sure to drain business on Ky. lake as costly dam project begins
Dylan T. Lovan, Associated Press
Issue date: 2/7/07 Section: News
JAMESTOWN, Ky. (AP) - Rollie Vonlinger looked sadly across Lake Cumberland at some of the fishing spots he has hit over the past 30 years. It is going to be hard to get to some of those spots from now on, because the boat ramp he normally uses no longer reaches the water.
"It's enough to want to make you cry," said Vonlinger, who comes from Danville, about 55 miles away, to fish on the biggest manmade lake east of the Mississippi.
To relieve pressure on a dangerously weakened dam and avert a catastrophic collapse, federal engineers are lowering the water on Lake Cumberland, leaving boat ramps, marinas and swimming areas high and dry.
Vonlinger and other fishermen wonder how they will get their boats out on the water. And businesses that depend on the lake, which draws 5 million visitors each year, worry their fortunes will drop with the water line.
The 63,000-acre lake is held back by the concrete-and-earthen Wolf Creek Dam, 258 feet high and nearly a mile long. The dam was built in the 1940s and '50s about 150 miles northeast of Nashville, Tenn., to provide hydroelectric power and control devastating flooding along the Cumberland River.
The project also created a tourist economy in what was once an impoverished part of the South, with the lake attracting nearly twice as many people per year as Yellowstone National Park.
The problem is that water has been seeping under the dam and eroding the limestone on which the concrete rests. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided it requires $300 million in emergency repairs, warning that a failure would send a wall of water into several small Kentucky and Tennessee cities and kill at least 100 people, harm more than 11,000 structures and cause $3 billion in damage.
The plan to drop the lake by 40 feet from its summer level of 720 feet above sea level, announced somewhat suddenly in January, sent a shiver though the region's booming businesses, who fear the low water could cut the number of summertime visitors.
"It's enough to want to make you cry," said Vonlinger, who comes from Danville, about 55 miles away, to fish on the biggest manmade lake east of the Mississippi.
To relieve pressure on a dangerously weakened dam and avert a catastrophic collapse, federal engineers are lowering the water on Lake Cumberland, leaving boat ramps, marinas and swimming areas high and dry.
Vonlinger and other fishermen wonder how they will get their boats out on the water. And businesses that depend on the lake, which draws 5 million visitors each year, worry their fortunes will drop with the water line.
The 63,000-acre lake is held back by the concrete-and-earthen Wolf Creek Dam, 258 feet high and nearly a mile long. The dam was built in the 1940s and '50s about 150 miles northeast of Nashville, Tenn., to provide hydroelectric power and control devastating flooding along the Cumberland River.
The project also created a tourist economy in what was once an impoverished part of the South, with the lake attracting nearly twice as many people per year as Yellowstone National Park.
The problem is that water has been seeping under the dam and eroding the limestone on which the concrete rests. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided it requires $300 million in emergency repairs, warning that a failure would send a wall of water into several small Kentucky and Tennessee cities and kill at least 100 people, harm more than 11,000 structures and cause $3 billion in damage.
The plan to drop the lake by 40 feet from its summer level of 720 feet above sea level, announced somewhat suddenly in January, sent a shiver though the region's booming businesses, who fear the low water could cut the number of summertime visitors.
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