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--The B-52s were the first to flee Mather Air Force Base. Then the KC-135s left, followed by the T-37s, followed by the yellow-headed blackbirds. The war birds left as the Air Force closed down the facility. The blackbirds left as Mather Lake dried up - the consequence of drought, regulations and complications associated with hundreds of acres passing from Pentagon to park.
A few ducks are left. They waddle over the cracked soil, past the beached dock, to what remains of the once-64-acre lake. Woodpeckers have moved into the dying willows and cottonwoods. But for the most part, what was a favorite fishing hole is now just a hole. County officials are concerned that by the time they get title to the lake for a new regional park, it will be completely dry, the fish dead. "Our plan is to maintain it as a recreational feature and for wildlife," said Roy Imai, planning chief for county parks. "But it is pretty depressing to see it now." Tim Manolis, a Sacramento Aububon census taker, has spotted more than 65 different bird species at the lake. "I was shocked to see it so low," said Manolis, who a month ago went to the lake looking for yellow-headed blackbirds. A colonizing, marsh-dependent bird, yellow-heads have nearly disappeared from the Central Valley, Manolis said. Ironically, they had found refuge in the dam-made wetland created by the military for relaxing warriors. "They weren't there a month ago, and that was one of our last remaining colonies of any size in Sacramento County," Manolis said. The earthen dam stretches across Morrison Creek near the golf course. The Air Forcestocked it with fish. In most years, the lake filled with winter runoff, which was scarce this year. In many years, however, the Air Force would give the lake a shot of water in summer - either from the wells that served the base or from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Folsom-South Canal. But the bureau doesn't have any water to sell this year. And even if it did, it couldn't sell it to the Air Force or the county, said bureau spokesman Jeff McCracken - not without violating the Central Valley Project Improvement Act of 1992. The act - intended to restore fish and wildlife from the harm of irrigation projects and agriculture - prohibits the kind of temporary sales that the bureau had been making to Mather, McCracken said. The Air Force would like to use its wells to refill the lake, said transition coordinator Lt. Col. Scott Gerhart. But the military has been told by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board that filling the lake with well water - the same water that flows from taps on the base - would violate environmental laws. The groundwater, Gerhart said, has more naturally occurring minerals in it than the runoff of Morrison Creek. "The problem is bureaucratic, and I am not trying to be facetious or point fingers," Gerhart said. "I am not a parts per billion kind of a guy, but I lose sight of where the rubber meets the road when we can't do something good for fish and birds." Antonia Vorster, a water quality engineer with the board, said the Air Force once considered treating contaminated groundwater and discharging it into the lake. The board had concerns and requested studies that were never completed. The board has not been asked to approve the use of clean groundwater to fill the lake, Vorster said. The county has worked some angles. For example, it has unsuccessfully tried to get a little of the water out of the federal canal that belongs to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District for Rancho Seco. That water is no longer used to cool fusing uranium, but according to contracts, it can't be used for birds, bass and boats. Imai said he has contacted wildlife officials and congressional offices - hoping someone can twist some arm that will turn some tap. Rob Leonard, the county's director of military base conversion, said the county tried to get the Air Force to ensure that Mather's facilities - from lakes to buildings - would be maintained during the transition, but the county proposals were rebuffed. "Of course we would prefer to see them maintaining things at a higher level, just from an asset protection standpoint," Leonard said. "It will be more expensive in the long run (to) put things back into beneficial use."