Postby zaphod » 17 Dec 2023 14:53
Lots of schadenfreude about this online, like on Reddit. It's unfortunate but it seems like a lot of people were unhappy to lose a lakefront park for a private development like this. Now there is approximately 0 public access points to Lake Ray Hubbard, since Garland closed Windsurf Bay park because there was too much riff-raff.
Lake Ray Hubbard is an example of what not to do with a man-made lake in an urban area. It was built decades ago as a water supply source but there was no planning for how it might be used for recreation, and it also serves as a large barrier to traffic and roadway/infrastructure expansion. It's also very shallow and therefore I'd presume it loses a lot of its volume to evaporation and is at risk of silt build up. I suspect if civil engineers decades ago knew how big Dallas was going to get today, they would have spent the money on an aqueduct for lakes further away.
It actually makes you wonder, if we built enough large reservoirs in East Texas and had large-diameter water tunnels or man-made canals (Houston has one paralleling the San Jacinto River for example), you could just drain Lake RH and free up an abundance of buildable land. Lavon would do flood control duty, there would still be a greenbelt. No more mosquito coast that dries up every drought, Rowlett could grow out on more sides, etc. Probably the same for Mountain Creek Reservoir as well, currently Joe Pool (a much cleaner, deeper lake with a much newer dam, a less urbanized upstream watershed) isn't being fully utilized for drinking water like it was intended for and the redevelopment of Hensley Field would be easier with more elbow room.