June 17 – 23, 2022Vol. 24, No. 2

Water Levels in Great Shape

by Dick Greenan

As of this writing, we are happy to report that, all of our pond water levels are in great shape, thanks to these persistent showers! It hasn’t been exactly Chamber of Commerce weather but we do need the rain — I just wish it took place while I was sleeping.

Great Pond’s Village dam is currently 2.4″ above full pond with both gates still completely closed. Long Pond’s Wings Mill dam is exactly right at 3″, also above full pond with both gates also completely shut down. Salmon/McGrath is now 2.8″ above full pond with its single gate opened just the mandated 1 cfs flow. Our neighbors on Messalonskee are down 4.2″ below full, which is just a fact of life with its electricity generation needs. As you have gathered, for the rest of the summer, we are in our “save the water” mode with all of our gates being closed when at all possible.

Our precipitation for the past 10 days was only 0.67″ but we are looking at 1.15″ for the next 10 days. FYI, our normal weekly precipitation during the summer is supposed to be 0.875″ so you can see we are running so far, about average.

The long-term forecast is calling for an average 20% less precipitation, which is marginally better than what they had for us for the past three years, so all is good news for our farmers, wells, gardens and of course, our lakes. We’ll take what we can get — as if we have a choice!

If you have a particular question regarding our Dams and/or water levels, please email your inquiry to dickgreenan@outlook.com and we will try to answer your question either in this column or via email.

Enjoy your summer! It should be beautiful.

Dick Greenan is secretary to the Belgrade Lakes Watershed Dams Committee. He submitted this report on June 9, 2022.


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