Chapala, lowest level in 20 years???????

Since there has been so little conversation about the Lake level - I am wondering about its accuracy? INFORMADOR has two artilces today and that was the title of one:

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dinformador%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DVdV%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=es&u=http://www.informador.com.mx/jalisco/2013/461893/6/chapala-peor-nivel-en-20-anos.htm&usg=ALkJrhjxQN1bNrsbMaHQBfDiIVO8xDoV1g

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dinformador%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DVdV%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=es&u=http://www.informador.com.mx/jalisco/2013/461877/6/pendiente-reglamento-para-la-cuenca-lerma-chapala.htm&usg=ALkJrhh-7_B60IjVEGJh5UVVFBBNMr7qOA

Granted there probably are not many people around who have been there for 20 years but there are certainly a number who experienced the last great draining.

cars can drive out beyond the statue

It is "nowhere" near as low as it was in 2000 & 2001 when the Guadalajarans used to drive their vehicles nearly a mile out to reach water.

2002-2003= 17% of capacity. That was my first trip down. The lake is waaaay up compared to what I saw back then.

I was there in 98-99 and 2002-2005 It was really low as Steve Miller has posted pic to attest to this low low level..

Also some time in the early seventies it was a lot higher back then, At that time the lake was almost up to the Old Posada. The waves at time would splash if you were seated up front.

In life, if we watch the water. A man can learn so many things. Water does not resist. Water flows. Water always goes where it wants to, water always goes where it wants to go.

Always remember water is the driving force in nature and if mere mortals could exist as water we could float in our times of despair and pain. Or maybe dance with the waves and the winds of a whimsy. The world would be a much calmer place.


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Yep, I remember when the lake came up to calle Independencia/16 de Septiembre on Morelos in Ajijic in ´76 or '77....no back door entering of the "old" Posada.
Ramon Corona in Chapala was under water so that would have been bad business for the parking meter company if they had been around then.
All people did, was complain about how, the high water was hurting the tourist businesses and the structural damage causing tremendous financial loss to lake front properties all along the north shore where most of the big homes (majority Guadalajara owners) were located.
The hue and cry then was..."we can not let this happen again".

espíritu del lago wrote:I was there in 98-99 and 2002-2005 It was really low as Steve Miller has posted pic to attest to this low low level..

Also some time in the early seventies it was a lot higher back then, At that time the lake was almost up to the Old Posada. The waves at time would splash if you were seated up front.
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A whole lot higher....The Old Posada...Morley Eager had sand bags a meter high at the back/lakeside door to keep the water out but the floor was still wet from leakage....but we partied on.
You felt like you were in one those fancy places where there's a big aquarium with windows for the patrons. All the electrical cords had to be strung high. No self esteeming socialites would dare to be caught there.

The Informador is incorrect, the current level is 93.12 per the CEA http://ceajalisco.gob.mx/chapala.html It was this low in late 2003 http://www.ceajalisco.gob.mx/sia/niveles/niveles.html it has a ways to go to reach the low of 2002 at 91.07M.

If you ever get a chance, look at Starker Leopold's book "Wildlife in Mexico - Game Birds and Mammals" published in 1958. He was a scientist, academic and adventurer/writer. He describes Lake Chapala in the late 1950's - when the Lake was at the 90 M level. He found that no one in the Mexican Government cared (or knew?) about what this going to do to wildlife migration routes - they seemed be more interested in creating new agricultural land. He felt, at that time, that the Lake was doomed. He also describes early accounts from the Lake, from 1918, when there were such huge flocks of white Pelicans, they would block out the sun. There is only one photo, a dust bowl type plain, I could scan it - but it is not really interesting.

Folks you're misreading the gist of the Informador article.
It doesn't say the lake is at its lowest level in the last 20 years, rather that it has undergone its steepest decline (descenso) in that period.
CEA data shows a loss of 1.42 meters in elevation between Oct. 5, 2010 and Jun. 22, 2011; a loss of 1.40 mts. from Aug. 9, 2011 to Jun. 17, 2012; and a 1.41 meter drop from September 18, 2012 to May 31, 2013.
The article suggests it could go down an additional 10 cm. before this year's rains take hold and put it on the next upswing. If that prediction is accurate it would actually mean the lake's biggest dip since the 1979-80 dry season (33 years back), when it lost 1.72 meters. (source: CEA graph Niveles Máximos y Mínimos 1900-2012).
Over the last decade the dry season descent has ranged anywhere from 67 cm. to 1.41 mt. Going back 25 years, the data shows a 1.45 mt. drop in 1987-88 and -1.5 meters in 1988-89. From time to time the lake has taken plunges of more than 2 and 3 mts. in a single season.
The big question is whether it will slip further over the next 12 months or enjoy a sensational comeback is it did in 2003 and a few other time over previous decades ?????

Thank you "Metiche"!

Another example of a translation program's failure to convey the intent of the original article.

We came in in 2001 and the lake was way lower and had been for mamy years considering the size of the trees on its shore. All these trees died when the lake came back.

However what is worrysome if the amount of water that is being lost every day. That we have never seen before. They are obviously pumping a lot of water out as there is no way evaporation alone is responsible , That is very worrysome and if the rains are not abundant the pumping will eventually destroy the lake.
I do not know they are pumping but it is obvious the water is being taken out in large quantities, one way or another.

Even more important is that the water is not coming in "in large quantities" from the R. Lerma and R. Zula.
Agriculture is eating up the water...more so now than then....than Guadalajara or evaporation.
More presas, more irrigation...over the years.

Re - reading Leopold's book, he compares the population of ducks and geese (game birds) from 1905, 1920 and 1956 (or so). In the account from 1905, the naturalist (not Starker) had to take a 3 day boat trip to get to, what I believe is the South Shore. He found 400 square miles of healthy freshwater swamp and great clouds of breeding game birds. Starker felt that the resource of sport hunting, within a framework of strict wildlife management, would be much more valuable to the local economy than farming. What a change over 100 years.

What a different time http://www.heritage-history.com/www/heritage-books.php?Dir=books&author=morris&book=mexico&story=sporting

CHILLIN wrote:Re - reading Leopold's book, he compares the population of ducks and geese (game birds) from 1905, 1920 and 1956 (or so). In the account from 1905, the naturalist (not Starker) had to take a 3 day boat trip to get to, what I believe is the South Shore. He found 400 square miles of healthy freshwater swamp and great clouds of breeding game birds. Starker felt that the resource of sport hunting, within a framework of strict wildlife management, would be much more valuable to the local economy than farming. What a change over 100 years.

be interesting to identify what he meant by breeding game birds. ducks and geese are migratory like the pelicans and only winter here not breed. there is a migratory pigeon that winters in mexico from south america i think.

I'll look it up for you Pedro. I got the book for the illustrations and photos. I am no longer interested in painting or sculpting wildlife and would like to donate the book to a good home. I think LCS is not a good choice, because it would likely disappear. Any suggestions?

Here is another Lakeside story about an abandoned Hacienda, and little history how the Lake ended up where it is today.
http://www.saudicaves.com/mx/malta/index.html

In 1922, a Scientist called Nordhoff: "The far interior of this swampy paradise, reached after three days' travel in a native canoe, is a vast sanctuary for wildfowl....I saw as many geese, Whitefronted (Anser albifrons) and Snow (Chen hyperboreus), as have ever seen in the Sacramento Valley, and the numbers of ducks was past beleif, with some interesting species like the Masked and Florida Black or Dusty, to lend variety. A more thorough investigation of this field would be worthwhile, for I have reason to beileve that several species of northern ducks breed there, and breed at a much later season than in our country. On November 20 (1909) I found a brood of young Shovellers (Spatula clypeata) unable to fly, and the natives told me that hundreds of ducks nested there, among them Gadwall, Dusky, Sprig, Shoveller, and Cinnamon Teal"

And the Leopold writes "In 1952 there were only 1,450 white fronted geese, 150 snow geese, and 102,000 migratory ducks on Lake Chapala, and this is by far the most important unit of waterfowl habitat left in interior Mexico"

I will contact John Pint to see if the Chapala Bird Club can steward this book, you can borrow from them. Lots of other critters in the book other than birds. Most of them gone - like otters, bears, wolf, beavers, etc.

i have hardly seen any ducks and no geese around here. this winter i saw a few teal and that's it. i have gone near a few marshes with my duck and goose calls-nada.
interesting stough chillin!

No Slainte, the water was not coming either last in year ,but now the pumping is or something else is happening In the last 12 years we have never seen the lake going down that fast on a daily basis. We walk the same area every day and have done so for the last 12 years, our neighbors are saying the same thing, there is something very differnt this year.
WE saw the Lake filling back up after 73 so we have seen go up and down but there is something very differnt this year and I ca only attribute it to pumping a huge quantity out.

Brigitte - this 'leak' is not as farfetched as many would think. A geologist published a new book this year about how Guadalajara was created by a huge volcano. The Lake has risen and fallen over the years.

http://www.saudicaves.com/mx/geobook/index.html

I still can't get over the loss of all those birds, all gone in less than 100 years. If so, the summer rains we feel here are false, they are actually the tears of the sky, mourning the loss of her feathered friends.

Add this to the mix, Dr. Stong will tell you that some time back there were nearly 5,000 fishermen on the lake, today only 1,000 and the lake salinity is rising, the PH is currently at 8.4 or 8.7 and when it hits 9.0 fresh water fish can no longer live in it, the lake will essentially become a "salt lake". However, he will also tell you that Guadalajara only pumps 8" per year from the lake, evaporation at this time of year can reach 1' per month.

Not big on conspiracy theories but could Guadalajara be pumping more water to prove the need for a second viaduct?