Festive atmosphere on Dunlap was drained along with the lake
Armed with a fishing pole, lures and a few cans of Bud Light, Rene Nava strolled across the dry riverbed — for nearly a minute — before reaching the water’s edge.
Despite it being Memorial Day, Nava was the only person on the shoreline. He lit a cigar, then cast the fishing line into the shallow Guadalupe River.
In years past, the water would’ve hummed with boats as families commemorated the Memorial Day holiday with barbecues and wakeboarding. The spot where Nava stood would’ve also been underwater.
That was before May 14, 2019, when part of the nearly 90-yearold dam containing Lake Dunlap failed without warning, draining the lake, stranding boats in mud and slashing lakefront property values within the course of minutes.
“I feel sorry for these people right here because they all had nice homes and boats and stuff like that. Now, they got to keep them in storage,” Nava said, pointing to the empty docks that hovered several feet above the water.
Nava is among the vast majority of homeowners in the neighborhood around Lake Dunlap who have decided to nonetheless stick it out, in hopes that the lake
will one day return to replace the mud flat and murky river currently there.
Lake Dunlap and the dam are part of a system along with five other lakes that were constructed in the 1920s and early ’30s to produce electricity. The dam failure at Lake Dunlap was the second of its kind within three years, blamed on decrepit and aging infrastructure.
In the wake of the collapse, the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, the agency that oversees the waterways, threatened to drain all the remaining lakes, arguing that future dam failures were inevitable and could endanger surrounding communities.
But residents along Lake Dunlap banded together to raise money to restore their lake and navigate a tangle of regulatory agencies that control it. They’ve taken the first step by beginning to form a local water district, which, if formally approved by voters in November, could raise money to repair the dam through a loan paid by an additional tax on waterfront properties.
The new dam is estimated to cost about $35 million, said J Harmon, president of the Preserve Lake Dunlap Association and a lake homeowner who is serving on the neighborhood’s water board.
“We’re all in this together,” said Harmon, who is running to secure his water board seat in the November election. “We’re either going to enjoy a new lake and a new dam and our property values are going to come back up, or we’re going to live with what we got.”
Harmon, who has lived for 15 years in the neighborhood surrounding Lake Dunlap, has been coming to the lake since he was in college in the 1970s. When he began dating his wife, they promised each other it was the place where they’d retire. After three decades, their dream came true.
“We did buy a slice of heaven on the water and built our house,” he said. “And, now it’s gone,” he said of the lake
What they have instead is a mud flat. A small river snakes through it, but it’s only deep enough to accommodate kayaks, canoes and the occasional flatbottomed boat. At some points along the river, people can cross through shin-deep water in areas that were once submerged 15 feet.
Some waterfront residents have planted grass to disguise the mud spanning from underneath their empty boat slips to the water’s edge — sometimes as far as a half of a football field. Others have constructed makeshift docks that extend across the dry riverbed into the water.
“I don’t even go down there to look at it because it’s so disappointing,” Harmon said.
It appears that at least some of his neighbors may share those feelings. On Memorial Day, after the stormy morning skies gave way to sunshine, the shoreline was still mostly empty. Instead of boat engines and music blaring from speakers, the only sounds were the birds singing.
Greg and Judy Brazeal, who are retirees in their 70s, live in a home that’s across the street from what used to be a lakefront park — which now abuts overgrown brush that blocks the water’s edge. The Brazeals own a boat, but it’s now sitting in their backyard.
“When (the lake) first went away, I thought, ‘Oh, they’ll get this fixed right away,’” Greg Brazeal said. “But if you think about it, the only ones that really care about it are the people up and down the lake.”
Families that once came to recreate at Lake Dunlap from cities such as San Antonio now just go to another one that actually has water, he said. But for the people who call the River Bend community home, there have been some silver linings.
Without boat traffic, Brazeal is able to go kayaking in the morning with ease. Party boats don’t blast music, and there are fewer people who litter along the river. And when the weather is good, the Brazeals see more families exploring the shallow water than they used to.
“There’s a gravel bar out there, and a lot of people take their kids and go out,” he said, pointing to the water that’s left.
“There are more people swimming and hanging out down there now than there ever were when we had the lake,” Judy Brazeal said. “Before, they were always in boats.”