Coyote Lake Update


I first addressed this issue of the ever growing Little Coyote Creek (I will soon be dropping the modifier - Little) on my blog Travels With Charley and figured it was time for an update.

Rising waters are temporarily frozen due to weather. Or since they are under the snow I haven't a clue whether they are frozen or not. But Friday when the sun reappears there will of course be more barely thawed water to add to my growing water issue. I am now calling it unofficially Coyote Lake and am looking for a used Sunfish sail boat for spring. And as the picture of Leeds Castle in England shows I won't be the first home with a water feature out the back door.

My letter writing (well, e-mail writing) has finally gotten the attention of some governing bodies. The county of Colfax still thinks I am talking the irrigation ditch and not the creek but the state engineer's branch office in Cimarron is beginning to see the picture. They have scheduled a site visit for Monday. Hope by then to have the dock built to tie the sailboat up to.

My conversation with the employee from the engineer's office made the complexity of the issue almost alarming. In addition to my accidental lake we have the irrigation ditch theft of water, the endangered habitat of a salamander and one species of rare trout, the wetlands on the far side of the stream, the earthen damn (sic) I know of in my neighborhood, and a rather more elaborate one further down toward Black Lake proper (actually I wonder if there is anything proper about Black Lake) but I digress.

All these items together make for a rather raped Little Coyote and there is talk of bringing in the BIG GUNS: The United States Army Corps of Engineers. They are in charge of dams, levees, and alterations of waterways. I have always wondered why it is an Army division and not part of the Department of the Navy. How many sail boats do I have to own to have my own Navy? And can it be a raft, a punt and a sailboat? Coyote Lake is not currently big enough for a submarine.,

More on this exciting subject, god willing, and the creek doesn't rise further. My latest concern is the major power pole on my property line that is standing in the middle of Lake Coyote. Could it fall? That would be electrifying.

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