Lake Meredith used to be a substantial body of water.
It now needs to be renamed to, say, Puddle Meredith.
The time-lapse video of the lake shows what the punishing drought has done to this once-magnificent body of water about an hour’s drive north of Amarillo.
The feds opened Sanford Dam in 1965 along the Canadian River. It filled up with river water, reaching a maximum depth of 103 feet in the early 1970s. It’s been downhill, so to speak, ever since.
The water levels got so low in 2011 that the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority stopped pumping water from the lake and shipping it to cities served by CRMWA. Marinas have closed. The lake level now stands — last I saw it — at around 27 feet.
The Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, which was created as a place for people to take their boats for a little water-related recreation now is a place for folks to camp, hike and do other things on dry land. I reckon some folks can still take their boats onto the water, what’s left of it.
I’m still waiting for an answer to this question: Did anyone foresee this immense water depletion occurring when they built the dam in the first place?
And was it all a wasted effort?
Amazing. Simply amazing.