A Roller Coaster of a Week
What a roller coaster of a week it’s been for your Dams Committee! With daily forecasts of scattered thunderstorms and the effects from Tropical Storm Beryl, we ended up with 2.33″ of precipitation for the past ten days, although it feels like more. We are still in our water conservation mode but are being challenged by these afternoon toad chockers! I guess that is why they pay us the big bucks!! We wish! In reality, we’re all volunteers and donate our time and blood in some cases, because, like you, we care about our lakes.
So, what would you do if you just received this weather alert from Kennebec County Emergency Management Agency within the past hour: “Showers and thunderstorms will have the potential to produce gusty winds and locally heavy downpours through this evening…particularly from the foothills north?”
Would you open all of the gates to make room for the impending doom, or toss the dice, take your chances and leave all of the dams at their pretty much 3″ above full pond for the summer visitors, with a serious potential of flooding out our streams, roads, loon nests, docks? We try to rely on some science here but it’s not easy and you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t — no pun intended! But we do have our hands on the switch in the event that we do get Armageddon!
For the time being, as this column is penned about a week before publication, the Village spillway dam is presently at 3.33″ above full pond with one gate still opened just the one foot to keep the flow in Mill Stream. Long Pond, at the Wings Mill Dam, is today 4.07″ above full with Gate 1 opened 30″. Upper Long Pond, nine miles above the Wings Mill Dam has been more affected by the deluges at 4.29″. Snow Pond is at 3.66″ below in order to make room for the water we’re sending its way. Salmon and McGrath are still in great shape right at 1.29″ above full pond with the 1 cfs calibrated valve still opened 15 turns.
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.
Dick Greenan is chairman of the Belgrade Lakes Watershed Dams Committee. He submitted this report on July 11, 2024.
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