This Alberta lake is losing 20 centimetres a year. Advocates are looking for a solution

One of central Alberta's busiest camping spots, Gull Lake, has seen a significant loss of water over the past few years. Curtis Goodrum reports.

Aspen Beach Provincial Park looked incredibly different the last time Louise Greenhalgh visited a few years ago.

“The water came way up to the reeds and it was so beautiful with the wildlife, the birds and the bulrushes,” she recalled during an interview at Gull Lake on Monday.

Now, she compares the extended stretch of sand at the edge of Gull Lake to Rathtrevor Beach Park on Vancouver Island.

“We have to walk for so far to get to the water.”

According to Lon Kasha, one of the Summer Village of Gull Lake’s councillors and vice-president of the Gull Lake Watershed Society, the lake’s level has been dropping about 20 centimetres a year for the past five years.

“(A) 20-centimetre drop over 80 square kilometres, that’s an enormous amount of evaporation and leakage,” Kasha told CTV News Edmonton.

“The volume in it is about 500 million cubic metres, and so it takes a lot to move the water level. But when you don’t get the typical moisture – in particular the spring runoff – that’s where you see the largest effect: on the shoreline.”

As councillor, Kasha hears frequent environmental, business and real estate concerns from locals. Only one marina is operational at the moment and he suspects the lake’s level is beginning to affect attendance at Aspen Beach Provincial Park, one of the first parks established in Alberta in 1932.

“I know in my subdivision sales have gotten quite slow,” said Norval Horner, a longtime visitor and the developer of Meridian Beach on the lake’s north side.

“I would say (it’s) worrisome. Once we get stabilization restored, it will help to restore confidence.”

Historically, Gull Lake’s level has dropped about five centimetres a year. From the mid-1970s to 2011, the lake’s level was stabilized by a pumping station on Blindman River. Then there were a few wet years before conversation ignited about restarting the pump. This was delayed by the discovery of Prussian carp, an invasive fish species, in the Red Deer River watershed.

Last year, the government approved resuming pumping to Gull Lake once a filtration system is installed. Kasha said it is expected to be fully operational by spring 2027. But he is clear: pumping water into Gull Lake will only stabilize it, not refill it.

Looking for sources to refill the lake, the watershed society also wants to test the water of the Haynes Aquifer – a freshwater reservoir beneath Gull Lake and much of western Alberta – to see if it is compatible with Gull Lake.

It is also investigating potential blockages of natural flows into the north end of Gull Lake.

“It’s such a nice central location,” Greenhalgh commented. “I hope it doesn’t become a dead lake.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Curtis Goodrum