Lake Travis Lifestyle

Your Guide to Lake Travis, Austin TX

Lake Travis: Full for 4th of July Weekend!

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Iceberg

Get ready for a full Lake Travis!

Early this morning, the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) settled an agreement with the Northern Atlantic Iceberg Authority (NAIA) for the purchase and transport of an iceberg to Lake Travis.

The iceberg selection team has located three possible candidates that are the right size and shape to make the trek from Greenland to Lake Travis. After final calculations on size and weight are determined, the lucky iceberg to land in LT will be announced.

Scheduled for the first week of May, the three-week journey will begin west of Greenland in Baffin Bay. The iceberg will be lassoed by large tow boats that will pull the massive ice cube through the ocean waters. They’ll head south along the East Coast of the United States, through the North Atlantic Ocean, down and around Florida through the Gulf of Mexico and up to Galveston.

The second half of the journey will be over land and take approximately three days to complete. Helicopters and pilots will be awaiting the arrival of the iceberg and preparations will begin for the airlift starting in the Gulf of Mexico. From there, it’s up and over Houston and away to the final destination — a drop in the main basin of Lake Travis on June 1st.

The weight of the iceberg and peak summer temps will begin the melting process, causing an instant rise in the water level of Lake Travis. This will result in below normal water temperatures for the month of July, but the timing should be perfect for the melting iceberg to fill up the lake and have 100% of the public boat ramps open by 4th of July weekend.

Win Win

The iceberg will be large enough not only to fill Lake Travis, but also allow extra water to be released downstream and sent to the rice farmers. The last time rice farmers received water from Lake Travis was back in 2011.

There has been talk about keeping the water level of Lake Travis at no more than 40% of capacity. This would allow the land on Sometimes Island to be developed into condos and apartments. Rent payments from the properties would create a steady stream of revenue for the LCRA.

But for now, the LCRA has decided to fill it up and make those islands disappear!

The Oasis will start taking reservations today, April 1st. It’s your chance to witness this extraordinary event (with a margarita in hand) from one of their decks overlooking the main basin of Lake Travis.

Keep your eyes in the sky during the month of May for the flying iceberg. And start making your plans for a 4th of July weekend spent on a full Lake Travis!

Flickr Creative Commons Image by weelibrarian

Reader Interactions

Comments

  4. Cool idea but …What is the cost associated with this venture? Who is picking up the tab? Is there a cost benefit analysis somewhere?

    • Cost analysis reply……
      The average marginal utility, out weigh the explicit and implicit cost.
      I think this post was creative, and right on point for April 1st. Water is an important issue, probably the most important;however, complaining does nothing, and humor makes a day better.

  10. Gotta be a April fools! But its not funny I was reading this week that lake Travis is pretty much dry

    • It’s not dry. It’s still 100+ feet deep in some places. And sailing races happen at Austin Yacht Club at least 35 weekends this year. 🙂 If anyone is interested, contact AYC. It’s free to come out and participate and learn…and that isn’t an April Fools joke 🙂 And you get to see how beautiful the lake still is.

  11. April Fools! It would take 231 Billion gallons of water to fill lake Travis to capacity, which would weigh almost 2 trillion pounds. No iceberg large enough to affect lake levels could ever be transported inland

  12. Oh how I wish this were true! But, all kidding aside, do come to Lago Vista on the 4th of July for our day-long celebration. Parade at 9:39 am on Dawn Drive, followed by food, activities, and music, music, music at Bar K Recreational Park. Our celebration is held on the banks of Lake Travis! Suspect we should have an iceberg naming contest… Y’all come! Ann Murrow, president of the Lago Vista 4th of July Council, Inc., a non-profit 501 (C) 3 corporation. Register at our website: LagoVistaJuly4.org

  16. You do know, of.course, that the ice has the same mass as the water so the lake level won’t change as the iceberg melts……

      • I guess that means that even if global warming melted the polar ice caps, it would not flood many coastal cities?

        • The rising sea levels comes mostly from ice that is not in the water (like the northern ice cap) but on land, like the ice on Antartica (which is actually a huge continent of LAND), as well as the massive amount of ice in Greenland, and other areas in Northern Canada, Russia, etc that would drain to the oceans. That’s where the rise in sea levels comes from.

    • It would if the iceberg was placed on land above the elevation of the lake and allowed to flow into the lake. And of course, an iceberg this large if placed in a depleted Lake Travis would mostly be above the water surface, again raising lake levels as it melted. This isn’t a glass of ice water scenario.

  17. This is a really crappy April Fools joke. Hey you don’t have to worry about running out of water! Just kidding…

  19. Funny April Fool’s joke from someone who doesn’t have a houseboat, real estate or finiancial investment in or near Lake Travis. With that creative energy why not lobby the lawmakers who can create new water resources? Just wait till you turn on your faucet and NO water comes out.

    • I actually think that the person who wrote this article has serious amounts of his entire life, earnings, and property invested in Lake Travis (check out his bio). Maybe this was his creative and funny way to spread the word about a very serious problem that he is faced with every day. The art of satire…

  20. Worst April fools day joke ever!!! Had me all excited. Now I feel like a punctured balloon.

  21. Have you ever tried to pick up a big container of water? It weighs 8 pounds a gallon. The weight of an iceberg is astronomical and would require Saturn V rockets to lift it, hahahahaah.. But hey, Houston does have a space center.. LOL or maybe just sail it here. That’s an idea seen before: https://youtu.be/svKq044qrYU

  22. On a side note – if everyone with a house on Lake Travis ran their hoses down to the water and let em flow…I wonder how long it would take to fill the lake back up? Maybe a week?? A month tops, I’m sure of it.

    • Where do you think that water Will come from? And think about the water Bills. You want to pitch in?

  23. MrChili and MrFreeze need to do a simple experiment on their kitchen counter with a glass of water 40% full and some ice cubes. Step 1: fill glass with water up to 40% level
    Step 2: fill glass with ice cubes until water level reaches 99%
    Step 3: come back 3 hours later and check water level. It just might be more than 40%! I’m surprised you guys didn’t fall for the iceberg joke.!

    • That’s not what they are saying. What they are saying is if you add ice to a body of water, the water will not slowly rise as the ice melts. To put it in your scenario, take a cup and fill it with 30% water, add ice to bring it to 50%. As the ice melts it will not go above 50%, because ice and water have the same mass the glass will stay at %50 weather the ice is frozen or melted.

      • Revolving,
        Your logic is correct.
        Mr. Chili & Freeze didn’t clearly state their logic. It seems to me they agree that the lake level wouldn’t change- AT ALL. I’d agree to that if we took large bodies of the Lake Travis water and froze it then placed it back and waited for it to melt.

        lets just exaggerate a bit more and see where this logic goes….

        1) 8:00am – my coffee cup with a tablespoon of room temp liquid remaining
        2) 8:30am – I drop in 3 ice cubes
        3) 8:31-10:59 – I carry on about my business for a few hours
        4) 11:00am – I check my cup and VIOLA! There’s more liquid in it than at 8:00am.
        5) 11:01am – ‘to infinity and beyond’ – wonder how there’s more liquid in my cup.
        6) upon my deathbed, realize I ADDED something to my cup and now the level of liquid is HIGHER.

        Sleep peacefully in my logic but still praying for rain to add to Lake Travis.

  24. I do not think this is funny AT ALL. I thought it was serious and was so happy. NOT funny. >:(

  25. I do appreciate and thank you for all of your comments, likes and shares. I decided it was time to let you know the icebergs are staying in Greenland — in case you were still wondering 🙂

    All kidding aside, I understand the severity of the Central Texas drought and the seriousness of the water level of the Highland Lakes. If you’re new to LT Lifestyle, follow us or look back at some of our past articles — https://laketravislifestyle.com/a-plea-from-one-lake-travis-lover-to-another/

    The Lake Travis area has water issues, traffic issues, development issues. I live here. I own a small business here. I have seen (and continue to see) the effects of the drought on our local economy.

    If you live here, I hope that you get involved with the issues, support our local businesses, support nonprofits that are making a difference — like this one: http://centraltexaswatercoalition.org/about-us/

    Our LT community is experiencing major growth. We can sit back and watch it happen, complain, leave, or get involved in a positive and productive way to make this awesome place we call home even better.

  26. As president of the ASPCI, I am appalled at this move to relocate one of our precious icebergs to a place where it will be in completely unfamiliar surroundings. The cruelty of melting in front of the entire world is simply unacceptable. This hideous behavior and treatment towards our frozen friends will not prevail….. I’m calling Olaf and my lawyer.

  27. Why not use trucks with freezer trailer (18 wheelers) to transport broken icebergs peices to Lake Travis. A lot of trucks need. More jobs for Truckers.

    • The world is not running out of water, don’t believe the hype. True, we may have less than desirable drinking water for the growing population on Earth. There’s over 1 billion CUBIC kilometers of water in the oceans alone. There is a water cycle, sometimes it’s not as abundant in some land areas (due to weather & environmental factors).
      Imagine if it all began to evaporate off all land surfaces on Earth. With our limited perceptions we would think it’s going away. But it would rain back into the oceans, come down as snow, be stored within animals & humans & plants, stay in the clouds, etc. It does not evaporate into space and it does not vanish into nowhere.

      • That’s right Phoenix — and I’d like to add that water is not as abundant in certain areas due to water management policies. In 2011, we watched nearly 50% of the water supply in Lake Travis head downstream — it’s being stored in rice for the time being.

  29. wondering how many calls the Oasis has gotten HAHAHAHA
    I appreciate the humor. pretty good

    to bad. that would be a great party

    • Thanks Danny! Maybe we throw a “waiting for the iceberg” party regardless 🙂

  30. Had me until the flying iceberg

    Isn’t Lake Travis freshwater and an iceberg saltwater?
    Is there any life in the iceburg that wouldn’t adapt well in texas?

    If that berg was drug by a boat, It’d probably melt by the time it got to Galveston

  31. Come on people! This is entirely believable! Sad part…by the time they got it to Houston the size would probably be somewhere between a 50lb block of ice and an ice cube. Good part…it would be easy to transport!

  33. If the lake is at 40% it would take 229,255,729,560 gallons of water to bring it to what is considered “full” so the ice berg would weigh in excess of 1,834,045,836,480 lbs. Not to mention factoring in what is lost during transport… A Boeing CH-47 Chinook, you know the big double prop military cargo helicopters, can lift about 13 tons… 1,834,045,836,480lbs converts to 917,022,918.24 tons, so it would take 70,540,225 of them to lift the berg… unfortunately only I little over 1,200 of these helicopters were built between 1961 and 2012 @ a cost of 38 million each

    • Steven, that is some awesome research! I do not believe the iceberg selection team has realized this, and it might be too late to tell them.

      • Icebergs are large chunks of ice that break off from glaciers. This process is called calvin. Icebergsfloat in the ocean, but are made of frozen freshwater, not saltwater. Most icebergs in the Northern Hemisphere break off from glaciers in Greenland.

  34. What about a Raindance flash mob on the Sometimes islands. We could watch from the Oasis. 🙂

  39. Is this one of those “Is the lake half full or is the lake half empty” quandaries?

  40. I have an even better idea…
    According to icebergfinder.com… the largest average Grand Banks iceberg weighs about 200,000 tons (or 400,000 lbs)…
    The 2015 Austin area population is right at 2 million (2,000,000) people.
    If each Austin resident bought one 20 pound bag of ice (costs usually $3.25 per bag, but I’m sure we could get a group discount)
    …then we all dumped that bag of ice into lake Travis on the same day… my birthday May 14th works for me
    … then that would equal to 40,000,000 lbs of ice – or 10 icebergs!… and we save on shipping!
    Buying the ice locally would be a tremendous boost to the Austin economy, which is always a “cool” thing to do….
    But then… there’s that darn Austin Bag Ban… so what are we going to do with all those empty ice bags…
    Oh, Nevermind.

  41. Well, the folks at the “Oasis” are not laughing either….taking any calls for iceberg reservations, however it could boost business if Oasis marketing team could play this prank forward into $$$$$

  42. Looks like that iceberg worked! Thanks Greenland! 😉

    It nearly looks full, and came up 10 feet in 24 hours the Saturday before Memorial Day.