Sinking water levels force closure of boat ramp at Lake Mendocino

Drought-induced low water levels have once again dried up access to Lake Mendocino’s north boat ramp, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced.

The south boat ramp remains open for now and the lake remains accessible to small, non-motorized boats that can be launched by hand, authorities said.

Boat ramp closures have become common during the drought. Both the north and south boat ramps were closed last summer and did not reopen until late December, after winter rainfall briefly replenished the lake. The water level began declining again by late winter. That decline was reversed in spring by changes in the rules governing water releases from the lake, but water levels began dropping again sharply in June.

The lake level on Thursday was 726.5 feet and there was an estimated 50,870 acre feet in the reservoir, almost 62 percent of the allowed water supply pool for this time of year. An acre foot is roughly 325,853 gallons, the amount an average suburban household is expected to use in one year.

Water was being released from the lake at 108 cubic feet per second on Thursday in order to maintain minimum in-stream flows for fish in the Russian River.

At the current rate, the lake level is dropping about one foot every 10 days, according to Corps officials. If that continues, the south boat ramp - located at a deeper level than the one at the north end - is expected to close in just over a month, officials said.