Hundreds of dead fish were found in an inlet in Lake Loveland this month , something that a Colorado Parks and Wildlife investigation found could be linked to low water levels in the reservoir.
Roughly 500 suckers, a fish that lives in Lake Loveland, were found in a small inlet in the lake, according to CPW, and photos and a video of the dead fish circulated widely on local social media over the last week. A video was posted May 19, and another photo hit social media on Sunday.
About 9 a.m. Sunday, Chris Futo took a photo that spread across social media. He said he noticed a bad smell while fishing that morning, and with nothing biting, he decided to walk up to the inlet to look for lures.
" ... then noticed all the dead fish and the smell was unbearable," Futo said in a message. "I'm a hunter, and I can handle my fair share of smell, but not this."
The water levels at Lake Loveland have been lower than usual for this time of year.
This spring has been a particularly challenging one for the Greeley Loveland Irrigation Company, which owns the water in Lake Loveland, according to GLIC General Manager Dan Kammerzell.
Dry conditions have made water scarce, and the peculiarities of water law in Colorado mean that there's a waiting list to refill lakes across the Front Range, including Lake Loveland.
The lake, along with many others across northern Colorado, are used to store water owned by municipalities across the region, but varying seniority rights mean that some are prioritized above others when water from the Big Thompson River begins flowing down in the spring.
Lake Loveland Reservoir's decree is ninth on the Big Thompson River, according to GLIC's website, which means the eight more senior reservoirs must fill before Lake Loveland Reservoir can. Additionally, the storage water right for Lake Loveland Reservoir only allows the reservoir to fill once a year and will not allow "re-fill" after the reservoir has filled.
Lake Loveland has not yet been filled this year, according to Kammerzell, as a greater need for direct irrigation, or water going directly to agricultural producers rather than into a reservoir, has meant a longer wait before Lake Loveland gets water. Additionally, he said, lower starting capacities in the lakes that are filled before Lake Loveland mean that it takes longer to fill each one, further increasing the time before Lake Loveland's turn comes.
Lake Loveland has seen some small amounts of water flow into it, something that happens each year, he added, but said that the days when that takes place have been a fraction of what they would be in a typical year, due to those needs further up the priority list.
By Tuesday, the water had begun flowing into Lake Loveland and the dead fish were no longer visible. Futo described it as "nasty" that the dead fish were not cleaned up before they were washed into the lake and "funny" that the water started flowing into the lake the day after his post his social media.
"That's just not right," he wrote in a message. "Seriously."