BEAR LAKE, Utah – As dropping water levels and drought batter Utah’s reservoirs, one popular spot is getting a new marina to deal with lower water levels and growing popularity.
The state legislature approved $60 million to build a new marina at Bear Lake.
Park managers said it will look like it has a copy of the old one placed right below it.
Bear Lake is silent right now, but as the weather heats up this spring and summer, many beaches and the marina will be packed.
“Bear Lake has been getting busier and busier,” said Richard Droesbeke, Bear Lake State Park manager. “More people have found the Caribbean of the Rockies.”
Droesbeke said lines to get into the marina already fill up entrance lanes that DOT recently built.
“Even with those new lanes, traffic was backing up to the highway,” he said.
In addition, he said there’s a slowdown for getting boats onto the lake too. “Our current launch ramp is only seven lanes and that’s our bottleneck right now too, is we can’t launch or retrieve boats fast enough to get them on or to get them off the water.”
Another marina with about 300 more boat slips will help them handle a lot more.
There will be about 12 more launch ramp lanes.
“That will help with the flow and keeping our lines down if there’s more lanes, then it will be less backup,” Droesbeke said.
It will also make it easier to get boats back in quickly when severe weather arrives.
Droesbeke said, “It creates a safe haven for the lake.”
He said the new marina will also be about five feet deeper, making it possible to keep running even in the lowest water years.
He explained it may be tough to keep up with the increased interest in Bear Lake.
“We’ve continued to see a constant growth with visitors to the park and to the marina,” he said.
There is a list of nearly 300 for the marina which is about the same as the number of new spaces that will be built.
Droesbeke said they still need permits from the Army Corps of Engineers but ideally, construction could begin as early as this fall, but more likely in the fall of 2023.
It should open in 2025.
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