Pond Levels Are Great, If You Like Lots of Water!
As of this writing, we are happy to report that all of our pond water levels are in great shape, if you like water! Actually, with these unrelenting showers we have still been able to maintain our early summer objectives. Considering the uncertainty of Mother Nature’s whims, do we hold all of our ponds at the full pond standard or gamble that we might just very well end up with another drought of sorts and be wondering what happened to our water levels? That is the mode that we have been in for the past five years — trying to keep all our ponds at 3″ above full to give us a little breathing room in the event of a drought of any proportion. We have found that at just 3″ above full pond we are neither flooding out any native hummock loon nests, nor are we floating anyone’s dock away!
The long term forecast still calls for 26% less precipitation through July whereafter it drops down to 16% less precipitation. We’ll continue to remain vigilant in our “save the water” mode with all of our gates being closed whenever possible. The bottom line is that “they” are not forecasting a wet summer, but a Chamber-of-Commerce summer that we all live for! What is that ole Maine saying, “Summer in Maine ain’t nothing but two weeks of bad sledding?” So-o-o-o true!
Great Pond’s Village dam is currently 3.48″ above full pond with both gates closed. Long Pond’s Wings Mill dam is right at 2.04″, also above full pond with both gates also completely closed. Salmon/McGrath is 2.16″ above full pond with its calibrated valve set to the mandated 1 cfs flow. Our neighbors on Messalonskee are actually down 2.16″ below full, which is a necessary fact of life with their electricity generation needs.
Precipitation for the past 10 days was only 0.87″ despite what we all thought — with showers practically every day! We are looking at paltry 0.62″ for the next 10 days, which is still way below average, hence our decision to start “saving the water” we’ve got. FYI, our normal weekly precipitation during the summer is supposed to be around 0.86″/week, or 3.43″/month.
If you have a particular questions 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. (Famous last words!) But I’d still keep the umbrellas handy if I were you!
Dick
Dick Greenan is chairman of the Belgrade Lakes Watershed Dams Committee. He submitted this report on June 13, 2024.
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