Scorpion Bay (Dirty Shirt) Marina - Lake Pleasant

azcaddman · Aug 10, 2006

Finally recieved some more detailed info on the new marina

Email from Skipper Marine:

As you may or may not know Scorpion Bay Marina & Yacht Club is in the process of performing an Enviromental Assessment (EA) for the location of the new marina.
We ask that you please go to the following Bureau of Reclamation web site to review the EA and see for yourself the minimal impact on the environment that this project will have.

http://www.usbr.gov/lc/phoenix/newsreleases/newsrel_SBM_EA_7-20-06.html

The Bureau of Reclamation is taking Public comments until Friday, August 18, 2006 and is very intrested in what you have to say. We need your support. If you want a new marina on the lake and value competition in the form of a friendly, family oriented marina, please let the Bureau of Reclamation know.

Send your comments to:
Bruce Ellis
Email:
bellis@lc.usbr.gov

the link provided is close but this one will take you to the right place for the detailed info

I've assembled a couple images (from the figure3.pdf above) and google earth etc.
higher res images are:
High water and Low Water

as you can see, the parking will be over the top of the existing hill that gets exposed in low water, and the road used to access the 'wall' diving area will be either a hike from the parking lot, or inacessable.

Dive-aholic · Aug 10, 2006

From those images, it looks like the marina will be very close to, even almost on top of, the wall. Regardless of where the parking lot is, it doesn't look like it will be a safe area to dive.

shark.byte.usa · Aug 11, 2006

Even it remains accessible imagine all of the fuel, oil and s-h-i-t that will pollute the water from the marina. I'm dissapointed, it's a great spot where boats currently cannot launch keeping it relatively safe from traffic. I will cetainly send Mr. Ellis an email but wonder if a group approach would be better or is the marina a foregone conclusion and it's just a matter of dotting the i's and crossing the t's now.

Garrett

Thanks for the info Art!

shark.byte.usa · Aug 11, 2006

Heck is there even a need for another large marina, is the Lake Pleasant Marina full? have a waiting list? I don't know maybe I'm just too biased I don't have a boat and wouldn't be able to afford marina fees if I did.

KazInAz · Aug 11, 2006

Hmmm a petition from all scuba divers in the area?
Anyone want to take that one? A petition could be left in each dive shop in the area.

shark.byte.usa · Aug 11, 2006

article:
"The county, which runs the park in far north Peoria, approved the $20 million privately financed project in December, handing Illinois-based Skipper Marine Development and other investors a 35-year deal to build and operate the 146-acre marina.

But because the park sits on federal land, the Bureau of Reclamation - the arm of the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages regional dams, power plants and canals - still needs to give its stamp of approval."

In reading this, it's seems it all up to the Feds now and we only have 1 week [till the 18th] to voice an opinion, I'm not sure that it matters unless we can show an unacceptable enviromental impact, I'm no bioligist to speak on such suspicions, but having been my fair share of marinas while I was in the Coast Guard I can definitely say they are no place I'd dive near regardless of boat traffic. If there was a biologist who could in a timely manner raise suspicions of environmental impact of a marina in the lake in a general sense that we could attach a petition to, I'd certainly sign, they have those online petition thingies [technical term

] that we could get alot of electronic signatures I'm sure.

Any biologist on the board????

Garrett

Dive-aholic · Aug 11, 2006

Unfortunately I think it's a done deal. Construction was already supposed to have started. I've heard the hold up was the owner of the current marina filing a suit in court because he didn't get a fair shake at this marina. That's obviously settled. There are a lot more boaters out there and divers. I think it would be a waste of our time, unless there was an environmental impact. But the lake is manmade, so how much more of an environmental impact could there be? Time to search for a new site.

shark.byte.usa · Aug 12, 2006

Yeah that's pretty much my take on the matter, I got one of those fish-n-maps and thought I'd grab a couple tanks and go scouting this weekend, I thought I'd go see how accessible the NW coves are, gotta be another wall/fish habitat elsewhere, now's the time while the water level is down, it's a big lake

Now if only I had a GPS!

Garrett

Dive-aholic · Aug 12, 2006

I checked the NW coves last year when the water level was low. It's pretty much a gradual slope. Not much in the way of rocks or walls. The deepest sections of the lake are closer to the dam. That's where we need to look.

Let me know if you find anything. I'll meet you out there one weekend with my GPS.

Scorpion Bay (Dirty Shirt) Marina - Lake Pleasant

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