Bibra Lake is no more

Most of the local wetlands dry up in summer. Market Garden Swamp stops being swampy before or just after Christmas and Manning Lake dries out shortly afterwards.

The bigger lakes usually retain their water all through summer, but this year has been particularly bad. First it was North Lake about a month ago. On February 23rd Kevin posted a photo showing the lake covered in green weed, with no water in sight. The weed has now grown tall and yellow and the small area of water that was there has dried up.

Now Bibra Lake, which is at least four times larger than North Lake, has gone. There are a couple of largish puddles, but most of it is grey mudbank.
We took a photo from the same spot at the beginning of February. The water had started to retreat even then, but the lake was still quite full.

The grassed areas on the western side of the lake are still bright green. The Council regularly waters them with ground water from bores.

According to the paper today one of every 2.5 litres of water used in WA comes from bores. Certainly almost all local government owned sports grounds and recreation areas are watered from them. Like the director of the Conservation Council I am convinced that the drain on local acquifers and the lowering of the water table through bores has contributed to the parlous state of the lakes. We can only hope that this winter, and the next few, will be very wet and that the lakes will live again.