Posted on October 30, 2024
El Paso County is preparing to drain Ascarate Lake in the near future, with the goal of preventing periodic fish kills and deepening the lake by excavating sediment and debris for the first time in its 85-year history.
A timeline for draining and excavating Ascarate Lake isn’t set yet. El Paso County hired the engineering firm AECOM late last year to study the lake and its water quality. El Paso County Commissioners Court will likely vote on whether to move ahead with the project within the next four to six weeks, according to a county spokesperson.
“It’s been such a long time since the lake was created,” Precinct 2 County Commissioner David Stout told El Paso Matters. “I don’t know if there have been any repairs or any cleaning or any dredging done in the past.”
Events in which hundreds of fish die at Ascarate Lake have not been uncommon in recent years; there have been at least a dozen fish kills at Ascarate since 2018, according to El Paso County.
County officials blame the fish kills on golden algae blooms that typically occur during winter months and are fueled by the sediment and nutrients that have piled up at the bottom of the lake since it was built in 1939.
Golden algae blooms “don’t happen every year. And when they do happen, there’s no feasible way to treat them,” Betsy Keller, the county’s chief administrator, told Commissioners Court. “You have to wait until the weather changes.”
In early 2016, 800 fish died at the lake as a result of an algae bloom, and in October 2019 another 600 to 700 fish died in a similar event. In early 2020, water tests found golden algae cells at Ascarate Lake that were “moderately toxic” to fish, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
In April 2023, visitors found dead carp and largemouth bass at the smaller lake in Ascarate Park, where tests found “high densities” of golden algae that was moderately toxic to fish, TPWD reported.
And in February, officials detected low levels of golden algae at Ascarate Lake, although it was classified as non-toxic.
“Eighty years of sediment has been accumulating in the lake,” Lorin Hatch, a lake ecologist with AECOM, told El Paso County Commissioners last week.
“That’s the nutrient source for the algae that grow in the water and make it kind of cloudy and pea soupy,” he said. “And when that algae will die and sort of rot, it’ll suck the oxygen out of the water, and that’s where you see the fish kills.“
The excavation work is also meant to deepen Ascarate Lake – which has a depth today of between 6 feet and 7 feet – to a depth of 8 feet.
In addition to trying to prevent algae blooms and keep fish stocked at the lake alive, the county is also seeking to replace a clay liner at the bottom of the lake that’s about a foot thick and is supposed to prevent the lake water from seeping into the ground.
However, the clay liner is no longer “intact,” Hatch said. As a result, the 48-acre Ascarate Lake loses about 28 feet of water to evaporation and percolation annually, which the county has to replace, according to AECOM.
Two women stroll alongside Ascarate Lake on October 22, 2024. El Paso County is eyeing a multimillion project to drain Ascarate Lake, make the body of water deeper and install a new plastic liner for the bottom of the lake. The goal is to clean the lake up and minimize algae blooms that periodically kill hundreds of fish at Ascarate.
The county still has to analyze potential cost savings of preventing water from seeping out of the lake. Plus, the county having to pump in water to replace leaked water has “perhaps led to significant costs to repair current well equipment,” Hatch said.
“I think it’s an investment that will help us to create some cost avoidance in the future when it comes to filling the lake and keeping it at a decent level,” said Stout, whose precinct includes Ascarate park.
AECOM recommended that El Paso County replace the clay liner with a new, plastic liner that has a lifespan of at least 36 years. A new clay liner is too costly and infeasible, according to AECOM.
County officials declined to discuss publicly the potential cost of the excavation work or the price for a new lake liner before the county solicits bids.
However, when El Paso County last year hired AECOM to study the lake for $93,000, the county set aside just over $6 million for the project. That was based on a “preliminary quote” from the county’s parks and public works departments, Stout said.
“That is subject to change,” Stout said of the $6 million cost. “It may be more. I don’t know how much more. That depends on what the bids come back in as.”
County commissioners still have to vote to approve the work. It’s not clear yet when the work would start and how long visitors and anglers should expect the lake to remain closed. Last November, Stout said the main lake would probably remain closed “for a number of months.”
The plan for the renovation of Ascarate Lake is to drain and excavate the lake, and stock the nearby duck pond that’s shown here with fish while the main lake is closed.
In order to drain the lake, AECOM engineers recommended the county stop pumping water into the lake and allow water to evaporate and seep underground. The county can also let construction companies come to the park and take some of the water for their own use, said Gilbert Andujo, an El Paso-based project manager with AECOM.
Before work starts, the county and its consultant still have to figure out a few details, such as what to do with turtles that live in the lake while it’s closed. For anglers, the county’s plan for now is to keep the smaller “duck pond” open and stocked with fish while the larger lake is closed.
Less clear is what to do about birds that flock to the lake because it’s one of the few large bodies of water in the Borderland region.
One thing El Paso County still has to figure out before work starts at Ascarate Lake is how to handle birds that use the lake as a habitat while it’s closed for construction and renovation.
Ascarate lake “is an important bird habitat,” Hatch said. “We need to address that.”
The improvements to Ascarate Lake are separate from the park-related upgrades that El Paso County is asking voters to consider in a bond proposal on the Nov. 5 ballot.
Proposition A would allow the county to issue $95.6 million of bonds and use the proceeds to fix up Ascarate and other county-owned parks. The improvements at Ascarate would include a new outdoor stage and covered pavilion, picnic shelters, a 3-mile walking trail and pedestrian bridge and upgrades to the park’s electrical system.
The proposition would increase county taxes on a home worth $200,000 by nearly $18 a year.
County Commissioners in early 2023 approved issuing $59 million of debt that’s paid back with property tax revenue but that didn’t require voter approval. That’s where the money for the excavation and lake project is coming from, because county commissioners decided it was essential maintenance.
“When I came into office in 2015, I felt like (Ascarate) park was not at the level that it could be,” Stout said, explaining why he’s sought to have the county invest millions into the park in recent years.
“This is deferred maintenance,” he said.
Ascarate “is a huge asset that the county owns. It’s the largest park in the area,” Stout said. “It’s 400 acres. And we want to have more people coming out to the parks.”
