Lake will be down till Saturday

[Phil Lilley]

Empire is dropping Taneycomo's level to 697.5 to allow work to be done at the Branson Landing. They just called us to let us know. The lake level is already at 699.0 and will drop another 1.5 feet.

This will make is very difficult to get a boat above Fall Creek, but not impossible.

I'm going to check and see if the Corp is going to run any water while they do this. Sometime Empire and the Corp coordinate and run the same amount of water thru each dam to keep the lake level high in the upper end of the lake.

The gravel exposed in the upper end and the bug in the gravel (scuds) will not be impacted quite as bad because of the lower temps today but tomorrow it's supposed to get up in the mid 80's and that may have an affect on them.

We'll see.

Talked to MDC Chris Vitello. Cloudy and rainy conditions are going to help a bunch. Also, MDC has asked for minimum 600 cfs from the main turbines during part of the draw down to minimize the affect of the drawdown in the upper end of the lake. The lake is supposed to be down a minimum of 48 hours but probably no more.

When are they going to run this water? Not sure but I'd say if they are it would be during the hottest time of the day today and tomorrow, possibly Saturday. 600 cfs is less than one turbine and with the lake level low, this will be lower than normal but faster current- that goes for the trophy area down to Branson so watch the gravel bars even if the water is running.

[Danoinark]

Kinda planned to fish at the dam on Friday. It will be interesting to see this and what effect it might have...Dano