More Water, Less Pain for Toledo Bend Businesses

Water is higher at the Toledo Bend reservoir in northwestern Louisiana.

And that makes recreation-related business owners happy.

Last June, the U.S. Drought Monitor placed parts of west Louisiana and east Texas at the top of the drought intensity scale. Toledo Bend was on its way to a record low in November of 159.42 feet.

Rain since then has brought relief. By spring the reservoir was close to 172 feet.

It was a little over 169 feet on Sunday, according to The Times. That’s a factor of less rain and the use of water for electricity generation.

Business owners say the level is still high enough to keep the reservoir more user-friendly.

Business owners such as Curt Carver, owner of Toledo Tackle on state Highway 6 near the lake, couldn’t be more pleased.

“What a lot of difference a little water makes,” Carver said. He said his business dropped 10 percent to 15 percent from July 4 to the end of December. “It reached a peak in September when we were down 25 to 30 percent because we didn’t see a lot of people on Labor Day.”

Linda Curtis-Sparks, Sabine Parish Tourism Commission executive director, said it may take another month or two of sales tax collections to know the full extent of the recovery. That’s because the hotel-motel taxes are 30 to 60 days behind as far as the collection report. The last report reflected a 30 percent decline, but that was before the water came up.

“It looks like we’re definitely rebounding,” she said.