Advertisement
YOU ARE HERE: KWCH HomeCollections

Slow Labor Day weekend at Kansas lakes

September 05, 2011|By Jim Grawe | KWCH 12 Eyewitness News

(RENO COUNTY, Kan.) — Some Kansas state parks looked more like ghost towns over the Labor Day Weekend.  It was a slow end to an already slow summer at many area lakes.

"We got all the beach right here in the world, all to myself," swimmer Jordan Sanchez says.

Just a handful of people spent the weekend at Cheney Reservoir.  Longtime campers Al Stewart and Brian Sereno say this is one for the record books.

"We've been coming out here for years, and this is probably the slowest we've ever seen it," Sereno says.

"There's no one here!" Stewart says.  "In this campground there's usually a bunch of people."

Soreno has pictures on his Blackberry of the algae bloom that forced the state to advise  people to stay out of the lake for much of the summer up until just before the Labor Day Weekend.  The algae, the excessive heat, the bad economy--they all combined to create the perfect storm which rained down on this park all summer long.

Advertisement

While the temperature finally cooled off, park ranger Chris Becker says the algae threat didn't go away until most people had already made their holiday plans.  Now, with the outdoor season coming to an end he says it's time to calculate the numbers and figure out how to make up for the lost park fees.  Meanwhile, a cooler, wetter summer next year would keep the algae bloom at bay and likely make the lake and campgrounds a less lonely place.

Officials at El Dorado State Park say this was a down weekend there as well, but not in a dramatic way.  The lake there was not under an algae advisory.

kwch Articles
|
|
|