On Hold 'Til Drawdown
by Dick Greenan
Well, this is our final Dams Keeper Report for the season. Whoever said, "Summer in Maine is nothing but two weeks of bad sledding," isn't too far off the mark! It seems like summer should be getting longer with all of that global warming but here we are regardless.
As of this writing, Great Pond is down 1″ below full pond which is still very good considering last year at this time we were down 6″. Long Pond is currently down 4″ whereas last year we were down a whopping 12.36″ and our friends over on Salmon/McGrath are now down 8″ below full. For those of you navigating the channel between Salmon and McGrath you may want to lift your lower units a bit to clear you know what.
The occasional afternoon showers and thunderstorms have been of some relief for our farmers and gardens but have been of little benefit to our water levels. As of this writing we have received 0.82″ of precipitation in the past 10 days with just a meager 0.38″ forecasted for the next 10 days so we remain still very short of our normal 3.60″ of precipitation for the month. The forecast for September is just 2.66″, another 26% loss in the precipitation department. Hopefully we can do better but I am not holding my breath!
The plan now is to try and keep what we have until the Fall Lake Drawdown which calls for Great and Long Ponds to be drawn down to 1.5′- 2.0′ and Salmon down to 1.0′-1.5′ by November 1. Weather permitting, the drawdowns usually begins after the Columbus Day weekend but at this rate it might just be a moot point.
Enjoy what's left of the Summer of 2019 and your vacation! I hope it's been a memorable one. It has been for us. See you next summer!
Dick Greenan is secretary to the Belgrade Lakes Watershed Dams Committee. He submitted this report on August 15.
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