Lake Cushman unusable summer 2011

City of Tacoma has notified home owners that Lake Cushman will not be raised higher than 725 feet, 13 feet below a full lake. At that level all community boat launches and docks are unusable. They have a concern about erosion on the south bank near the spillway.
They want to wait a year to observe the situation. Doing so could mean bankrupting businesses up there that depend on summer tourist dollars, the resort, and all the people with rental cabins, not to mention the rest of us who have cabins or generally use the lake.

It sounds like someone needs to raise hell. Sadly I am becoming jaded over the years with the ability of people running our city's/government. Go tell those old tarts on the board what will happen to the area if they dont handle the situation now. "They want to monitor" aka dont do anything.

Sucks, that's a nice (but cold) place to ride where we don't usually see too many people.

I bet business is worse off if the dam fails.

I have been told by a reliable source that the launches will be usable at that level.

Only the old State Park launch will be usable. I know the community launches at Div 2 and 3 will be out and very dry. You could use them, you just would be rolling on rocks instead of concrete, have no dock, and the ramp at that level is not steep. I don't think Div 1 is usable at 725, but don't know about Div 14.

Wow- never even heard of people riding out there. That water has to be FREEZING!!!!

Water temp in May is 58ish over the past three years, low to mid 60's in June, upper 60's in early July and right around 70-74 end of July and first week of August, then back down again. Not too bad.

We dont care about the freakin water temps here in the PNW, we ride what ever body of water we can, LOL. That totally sucks on the water levels though. I prob. wouldn't want to go there if only one ramp is useable. Makes for a long wait to get on the lake.