Great Weather For Lakes, But Not For Gardens
I can’t believe I am writing this at this time of the summer! Thanks to what has felt like persistent showers, they really haven’t amounted to much. We have only received 0.10″ of precipitation for the past ten days with just 0.36″ forecast for the next ten. Normal July precipitation for our area is 3.43″, so it looks like we might be headed for another drought of sorts. Great lake weather but our gardens are going to require a little bit more TLC!
Great Pond’s Village dam is currently 1.44″ above full pond with the main gate closed, as are all of our gates. Long Pond’s Wings Mill dam is right at 2.64″, also above full pond. Salmon/McGrath is exactly at 0.06″ above full pond, essentially full pond, with its single gate valve still opened the mandated 1 cfs flow. Our neighbors on Messalonskee are down 3.48″ below full which is just a fact of life with its electricity generation needs and our current (as I write this) need for A/C! Obviously, we are back to our “Save the Water” mode.
With this past week’s heat, all of our ponds lost about 3⁄10″ per day and in doing some research, these are actually normal evaporation rates. An interesting article by C.E. Grunsky entitled “Evaporation From Lakes And Reservoirs,” going back to September 1931, suggests that the evaporation rate with an ambient outside temperature of 85°F is approximately 3⁄10″ per day. And if that wasn’t enough, about 80% of our camps still use lake water and in addition to the slight seepage from our dams, you can see why we are trying to keep the lakes at 3″ above full for a little wiggle room!
Dick
Dick Greenan is the Rome representative on the Belgrade Lakes Watershed Dams Committee. He submitted this report on June 24, 2025.
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