Tempe Town Lake receives long overdue drink
Brian Bernadel
New water arrived at Tempe Town Lake early morning on Friday, Oct. 8. Tempe’s mayor Hugh Hallman was on location with City Council members Robin Arredondo-Savage and Mark Mitchell to welcome the arrival of the water used to refill the lake. “It has been 11 years since the first time water flowed into Tempe Town Lake and 78 days since the second bladder of the dam ruptured causing all of the lake’s water to flow downstream,” said Hallman.
Jeff Lane, a spokesman for the Salt River Project (SRP) said, “The water will be delivered from the Papago Park Dam through a turnout lateral that is owned by the City of Tempe and will arrive just a few minutes later through a drain right under Tempe’s Light Rail Bridge.”
The lake is expected to be refilled within a month.
“Eventually if all goes as expected the rate will be increased to 75,000 cubic feet per second and then 100,000 cubic feet per second, and at that pace it will take between 12 and 25 days for the lake to fill which holds about 977 million gallons,” Lane said
The lake has acted as a tourist attraction in the past.
“There has been $415 million in revenue from tourists visiting the lake and private sector development nearby, making the lake a very important part of the economic cycle within our community,” Hallman said.
Clint Gregory and Jack Hochadel of Tempe Boat Rentals talked about their enthusiasm about the reopening of the lake.
“We are very excited and are opening up on October 30 . and we are going to have a variety of boats ranging from single person and shared kayaks, to skips that can be fished off of and maybe even sailboats and possibly stand up surf boards,” Gregory said.
Although the company Gregory and Hochadel work for has been in business for about 18 years with four locations in California, they admitted this will be their first attempt at handling boat rentals at Tempe Town Lake.
“The prices for rentals vary based on the type of boat one wishes to rent,” Gregory said.
“A single person kayak will only be about $15 per hour and $20 per hour for a shared kayak and I believe the pedal boats are also $20 per hour and the electric and the larger boats will cost more,” Hochadel said.
