The lake comes up, the lake goes down, and the wheels on the
bus go round and round. It’s been a crazy 12 months at Saylorville, where we volunteer
and live each summer. As we helplessly watch the lake rise again, we know that
the possibility of being moved out again is a very real. Everyone has their
fingers crossed that it won’t happen again.
Being an outspoken environmentalist and conservationist, I rein myself in on my blog because I don’t want to politicize it. There is enough of that toxin in the world right now. But there are some real issues that impact Saylorville Lake and many cities around the country who are developed near rivers. Saylorville was built 42 years ago when Polk City was barely a town and the cities of Ankeny and Johnston who flank the east and west shores were miles from the shoreline. In the decades since it was built, Ankeny has developed all the way to the lake shore, literally. Polk City has grown from a few hundred to nearly 5,000. Every time they develop a new neighborhood or commercial property, they poor more concrete and lay more sewer tile that carries the run-off to the barrier dam at the north end of the reservoir that protects the city from flooding. Add to that, the miles of field tile that farmers lay every year north of here. Those fields drain into the creeks, which run to the Des Moines River that feeds Saylorville. Every square yard of pavement, and linear foot of field tile impacts the lake in a negative way. It also prevents mother earth from doing her job which is to absorb and filter rainwater down to the aquifers that serve as natural storage for fresh clean water. To exasperate the situation, rain events are becoming increasingly more potent. Up to the last few years in my 54 years in Iowa, a typical storm brought ½ - 1 inch of rain. A big rain was 2-3 inches. Now, the weather map on the news is commonly filled with 4-6-inch reports of fallen rain. It seems, every time it rains, my rain gauge has at least an inch. Trace amounts are not seen any longer. 42 years of silt accumulation at the inlet of the lake has reduced the holding capacity significantly.
We sit in Volunteer Village and watch the River Gauge website predict the lake level. We all know, when it gets to 880 MSL ( mean feet above sea level) we are out of here. The water will be at our back doors and the maintenance crew will be forced to pull the power grid. It happened twice last summer, after only happening once before over 10 years ago. It happened this spring before we returned, and it threatens to happen again this summer at least once. That is unprecedented and not a sustainable situation for us who live in Volunteer Village in trade for our work here at the lake.
What’s a volunteer to do? We contract for these gigs with the agreement of trading our time and talents for a full-service site. When this situation occurs here the 10 couples in the village are forced to live in sites with electric only. We have to pull out regularly and dump our tanks and live within the constraints of our holding tanks and still work the same as when we are getting the convenience of a full hook up site. We are asked to literally move our whole life when we move back and forth from the public campsites to the village as the fickle lake rises and falls. Many of us plant gardens and landscape our sites. We have patio furniture, extra vehicles, porches and many other things that define us from the weekend warriors. It is no small task to pick up and move when you plan to be in the same site for the six month season you have committed to. It does present a dilemma. It’s not the lakes fault. The Rangers are powerless to stop factors that are wreaking havoc. We are very fond of this place and love our summers here, but we have to consider whether to continue when we know the dynamics of the lake have changed and volunteer village is now in a regularly flooding plain.
We keep in contact
with many work campers we have met along the way and this scenario is playing
out all across the country as wildfires, floods and other extreme prolonged
weather events impact the natural areas where we love to work. We as park volunteers
have a front row seat to the impact that climate change is having on our earth.
This is where I will stop, lest I get on a rant about the state of our environment
and mankind’s careless consumption and pillaging.
I hope we don’t have to reconsider our summer gig. We love
it here. But if we endure another year of being moved back and forth from our site,
we may be forced to find a different way to be at home in Iowa near the kids
during the summer months. In the meantime,
I will watch the lake rise from my motorhome window over the table that doubles
as my desk. I’ll say a silent prayer to Mother Earth, plead for mercy, and hope
for the best.
Until Next Time…
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