Tempe Town Lake draining will affect ASU's men's rowing team

The ASU rowing team practices as the sun rises on Tempe Town Lake — it's a sight that residents and students won't be seen for a long time starting in February.

The city of Tempe has decided to drain Tempe Town Lake for a portion of the spring semester in order to finish the final stages of the Western Dam Replacement.

President of the ASU men’s rowing team and first year masters student Nick Ansara said the impending draining of the lake is one that he and his team are not looking forward to, seeing that their primary training season is in the spring.

“Spring season for the rowing team (is a big deal) — which is the more competitive season anyway," Ansara said. "And so we kind of get stuck with doing the opposite of other schools do.”

Even though the draining of the lake will relocate the team during some of their most practice-intensive months, Ansara said the final end product will most likely help the team instead of hurting it.

“It makes sense because they are expanding the dam,” Ansara said. “As far as from a rowing perspective, when they expand it, it adds distance to our training space, which will be great instead of turning around and going back and forth.”

Stephanie Weiner, the head coach of ASU's men’s rowing said from mid-February to the beginning of April, they will be losing the water time and will have to make it up on dry land, in the gym with a rowing machine if the team is able to get one.

“It’s definitely going to be challenging. We’re going to be definitely doing a little of training indoors,” Weiner said.

Weiner said the next closest body of water in the Valley is Firebird lake, but it wouldn’t be worth the journey. With a team call time at 5:30 a.m., students would have to get up even earlier, find a way to get to the lake and transfer the equipment to the lake.

“It’s just a lot of logistics to just pick up and move,” Weiner said.

Although the river project is an inconvenience for the rowing club, Tempe City spokesperson Nikki Ripley said the Western Dam Replacement is long overdue and much needed for the local lake.

The Western Dam Replacement will remove the current dam and replace it with eight steel gates that can be lowered to allow storm waters to passed through and raised to capture the tail-end of the lake water through the use of hydraulics, according to the website.

“The project is really in it’s final stages,” Ripley said. “The water will be pumped out of Town Lake and will be moved to a SRP canal."

Related Links:

Is Tempe Town Lake worth it?

With empty lake, ASU water sport clubs shift focus

Reach the reporter at sgreene6@asu.edu or follow @thesydneygreene on Twitter.

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