The erosion of White Rock Lake

The shoreline is wearing away at an alarming pace, and neighbors want to stop it before it’s too late

Story by Brittany Nunn

It’s hard to imagine that a lake can get too much rainfall, but that’s exactly what has happened at White Rock Lake. Lots of rain means softened soil, and in this case softened soil means erosion.

“We had all this nice rain that softened the soil, and then, with all the wave action, that’s the perfect combination for erosion,” says Lis Akin, executive director of For the Love of the Lake.

For the Love of the Lake identified a section of shoreline on the peninsula south of the White Rock Dog Park that has lost 14

“We had all this nice rain that softened the soil, and then, with all the wave action, that’s the perfect combination for erosion.” feet since 2009.

Walkers, runners and cyclists who use the trail that edges the shoreline of the peninsula between East and West Lawther come within several feet of the erosion, which is rapidly inching its way toward the trail. The precarious drop-o , marked with orange fencing, lost more than three feet from June to August, and it’s only going to get worse, says Akin.

“We’re trying to move forward as quickly as possible,” she says. “I’m alarmed by it myself. Nobody knew that it was going to

“Walk along the and you can actually see where the damage is. You can also see the danger where the orange fencing is.” lose three feet over the summer — that’s really fast.”

The problem is the peninsula is manmade, says Richard Akin, a member of For the Love of the Lake and the senior engineer for McCommas Blu Landfill. “So, it’s not the most stable material, and the lake’s reclaiming it,” he says.

The entire peninsula along Mockingbird was created as a result of the 1974 dredging, says Sally Rodriguez with the Dallas Park and Recreation Department. The lake has to be periodically “dredged,” Rodriguez explains.

“In very layman’s terms, as the creek flows into the lake, it brings silt and dirt and everything else with it. The lake gets shallower and shallower, and so periodically [the city] has to go in and dredge it all up.”

That means the silt is pulled out of the lake and dumped where the peninsula is now. Following the 1974 dredging, it was several years before the ground was solid enough to walk on, and it probably was never meant for recreational purposes, Rodriguez points out.

All of this contributes to the erosion happening today.

“Walk along the shoreline, and you can actually see where the damage is,” Richard Akin says. “You can also see the danger where the orange fencing is. If a cyclist doesn’t take that turn properly — or I’m thinking more of children — I don’t want to see anybody go o the edge because, for one, some of that debris is exposed there, and it’s not going to be a pleasant landing.”

The city has to decide how to fix the problem. First, the city plans to temporarily re-route the trail so it doesn’t veer so close to the ever-encroaching drop-o .