A combination of warmer climate and water mismanagement has led to the draining of Eagle Lake near Susanville. While changes could still be made to preserve what’s left, the Bureau of Land Management says getting the lake levels to where they were a century ago would take decades of rain without evaporation — and that’s a scenario that just won’t play out. Evaporation and winds drop lake levels at Eagle Lake several feet every year. “You get 3-5 feet of loss every year so you have to balance that with recharge, and if you don’t, then the lake just gets smaller and smaller,” said Stan Bales with the Bureau of Land Management.