NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/683373
JUNE 2016 • NEBRASKAland 51 One of the top destinations for divers actually stretches half-way across the Cornhusker state: the more than 50 sandpit lakes, including 40 open to the public, found along Interstate 80 and the South Platte and Platte rivers from Big Springs to Grand Island. The lakes were created when crews building the interstate borrowed soil to build the overpasses at each interchange. The pits, with maximum depths reaching 10 feet in some and 30 in others, filled with groundwater, and because of the sandy bottoms and little surface runoff they receive, they stay relatively clear, offering visibility of 10 to 20 feet on most days, and even more on some. "The great thing is if [visibility] is bad in one, you can go to another one," said Randall Purdy, owner of Heartland Scuba Center in Kearney. At the behest of the Game and Parks Commission, construction crews varied the depth within the lakes to make them more fish friendly, and they are, with most lakes holding largemouth bass and bluegill, and some adding channel catfish, crappie, smallmouth bass and common carp, giving divers plenty to see. There are a number of sandpits with similar characteristics in the Platte River Valley – and elsewhere in the state – that have remained following gravel mining operations, but most are private. The exception, and the one most popular with divers, is Lake No. 8 at Sandy Channel State Recreation Area south of Elm Creek. Dive shops from Kearney and Lincoln use the lake, which is actually four connected lakes, for their open-water certification classes. Through the years, with permission from the Commission, divers have sunk numerous items in the portion of the lake just north of the park entrance, including boats, a satellite dish, a tire reef and Kenny Beans of Kearney and a few bluegills swim through a tire reef in Lake No. 8 at Sandy Channel State Recreation Area near Elm Creek. Dive shops train in the lake and have placed the tires and other items in the lake for divers to locate.