Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

So our pontoon is on Hardy Lake near Big Rapids, Michigan. This is an old hydroelectric dam run by Consumer’s Energy. They had a issue with a crack in the spillway and the lake level will be held at Winter levels until it is repaired. This is about 10-12 below pond stage and all the slips at our docks are about 10 above the water level.

The official statement from Consumer’s was that it would not be back to pond stage until the second weekend in June. The unofficial statement is that the local merchants have complained that the loss of income from Memorial Day Weekend would be crippling for them and that the work crew has been offered a bonus to finish before Memorial Day.

At present, I have delayed putting my pontoon in until June 15. I am using this time to finish projects at our seasonal trailer at the resort so it will be time put to good use but we are losing about a third of our season.

That sucks, a local lake Boone Lake has been down like 35ft for years now, with the COE trying to figure out how to fix leak at dam

It is weird to look at all the boats and houses on dry dirt hundreds of yards from water

Luckily our lake is the first in the system TVA

I was lakefront on Boone for several years when the big drawdown hit. I stuck it out for about 3 or 4 years then heard it wouldn't be complete until 2022. I sold that place, for a good price, and bought a place on Lake Greenwood, SC. Almost no snow and only a 5 foot drawdown annually over the winter. Even with the drawdown I have enough water to boat year round.

Sorry to hear about Hardy. Let's hope they're much quicker than TVA is on Boone.

Update - Lake is back to full pond stage. It was down over the Memorial Day weekend which really cut the boat traffic down. Pontoon came back on Thursday. we were planning on going out but Tstorms prevented it.

Good to hear