ARVADA —The waters of Tucker Lake, a little known fishing oasis used to irrigate West Woods Golf Club, is about to be drained.
And pending Colorado Department of Parks and Wildlife approval, unlimited catches of walleye, yellow perch, smallmouth bass and other fish are in the pipeline for local anglers before drainage begins in October.
“We don’t want a fish kill — we want people to be able to harvest them,” said Arvada Water Systems Manager Cliff Deeds. “The only other viable option is to shock them and transport them to another body of water, but the main problem with that is there’s no boat ramp” at Tucker Lake.
In early 2014, city engineers noticed signs of water seepage on the south side dam of the 150-year-old man-made lake near West 72nd Avenue and Virgil Way, northeast of .
Since then, the seepage area has gotten larger, making the slope potentially unstable. The only visible signs of seepage are a few lush patches of grass at the base of the dam.
“The original construction happened in 1870 and back then they just dug up dirt to make dams,” said Jim Sullivan, director of utilities for Arvada. “It’s obviously done differently now. There’d be a clay core covered by a pervious shell.”
The lake, which holds 800 acre feet of water when full, has been lowered from 15 to 12 feet to bring the water level below the area of concern, but it’s only a short-term solution, Sullivan added.
“We’ve submitted plans and are waiting approval from the state’s Dam Safety Branch … it can still seep down further, so there is a danger it can eventually get saturated enough to have a section of the dam slough off,” Sullivan said. “It’s unlikely to breach, but we’re not going to take that chance.”
Fed from an irrigation ditch that branches off from Ralston Creek, the sole purpose of Tucker Lake is to hold water for irrigation purposes, mainly for the greens at nearby Once drainage is completed in late fall, the city will wait for the ground to settle and freeze before work begins, Deeds said.
Ground around the seepage area will be dug up and replaced with what can best be described as a patch; an 18-inch concrete pipe that feeds water into West Woods will also be exposed, allowing crews to line and waterproof the tubing with a thin plastic seal.
“Total cost of all of this we estimate should be around $50,000,” Sullivan said. Most of the lake water will be drained into the West Woods irrigation system, and the rest pumped back into Ralston Creek.
Work is expected to be finished by early spring of 2016, and “another wet spring like we had this year could fill the reservoir back up in a single season,” Deeds added.
There is a trail around Tucker Lake, but usage is generally light.
Even though the body of water has never been stocked, a small group of local anglers have found it produces a bounty of bragging-rights-worthy fish.
“I’m very bummed it’s being drained — hands down I’ve spent the most time fishing here after school than any other place the last year,” said 16-year-old Bryan Suchey.
He contacted the city after hearing about the drainage plans to see what he could do to help preserve the fishing opportunities post-drainage.
“I would definitely consider this a hidden gem,” Suchey said. “There’s actually quite a few master-angler-sized yellow perch and trophy-sized walleye in here.”
City officials said a number of criteria are looked at when deciding whether or not to stock a lake, and an official stocking program is unlikely in the near future.
“It’s an irrigation lake, so to spend money stocking it, and if a bad drought came along, it could easily dry up all the fish,” Deeds said.
Colorado Department of Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill said the department is always willing to work with cities about a stocking program, but studies have to be done first to make sure it’s the right habitat and which fish would thrive in it, among other criteria.
“As far as future stocking at Tucker Lake, we’re not opposed to doing it,” Churchill said. “But they have to want to do it and if the city and people are interested, they can request help from us.”
