Al-Der Water Gone

Day 30: In the thirty years I've lived here, I've seen the power company let Alder Lake down this far only a couple of times. This old railroad trestle is normally under water, drowned along with the rest of the structures which comprised the town until the dam was built in 1944. The town's few residents were relocated, their businesses closed, the schoolhouse demolished and a piece of local history disappeared into the mists like Camelot, resurfacing only at times of low water. At this point, you can walk out to the "big island," Bogucki. Schoolhouse Island sits high and dry off Sunny Beach Point. I've heard several explanations for the massive drain of the lake, the most believable being that law requires the power company to let a certain volume of water through the spillway or risk being fined. They are also required to monitor water temperature downstream, and as it rises, gates at the bottom of the dam are opened to let colder water through, ensuring the optimum temperature for salmon reproduction on the lower reaches. Whatever logic is at play here, the result is that in early summer we have a nice lake, but now, it's silt and stumps and ugly as a mud fence. Al-der water's gone.