Fishing, boating done for the year at Lake Alvin

Officials double-timing to get popular lake back open by next spring

SCHINDLER – Hundreds of fish pooled at the bottom of the Lake Alvin spillway, refugees from last month’s flooding. Now and again, one jumps up the spillway in a valiant — yet futile — attempt to return home to the lake above.

Come mid-July, they will be permanently displaced. South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks begins its project to repair the Depression-era spillway, damaged in a previous flooding event in 2019. The current spillway is pockmarked, and a retaining wall has crumbled, leading to fears that erosion might cause a landslide or hill collapse.

Project details were discussed at a Lincoln County Commission meeting and a subsequent open house earlier this month, where about 20 nearby residents questioned GF&P staff about the future of Lake Alvin. The contractor on the project will begin draining the lake this month by about 1 foot a day until 10 feet of water has been removed. That 10 feet will give the contractor enough room to remove and pour a new spillway, and also give the lake enough capacity to handle more rain, said Adam Kulesa, planning and development administrator in the GF&P’s Parks Division.

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