Why is it

[oldfella]

Why is Beaver lake 7 ft high and rising, and Table Rock is 1 foot high and dropping?

[JohnF52]

Beaver is the first flood control lake in a chain of three. If the USACE lets water out they cannot put it back. I think it might be also related to greater pressure from the tourism industry near Branson. High water makes conditions worse for camping and water sports in general.

[Guest]

COE likes to keep TR at 915.

Once they reach 915, I suspect they will start dumping the 7ft of water from Beaver into TR.

just my opinion

[bferg]

Every lake in the chain is over full pull- gotta start draining at the end and work your way up. Bull Shoals is also pretty high so their ability to just dump water out of TR is probably a little limited.

[Guest]

Not exactly, BSL can hold a lot of water(40ft of flood pool)

Sometimes the lower White cant dump into the Miss River & they have to hold the water at BSL until the big rivers fall out.

[Robert Haynes]

They may also want to limit the amount of water to the Mississippi to prevent it from flooding because it has so much water coming in from so many different areas

[Fish24/7]

last rumor I heard was Bull is eventually getting 5 more feet, or even more on top of that if it rains this weekend.

then we will be 20+ high . The charts and graphs I look at go by the 654 level.

[hoglaw]

They may also want to limit the amount of water to the Mississippi to prevent it from flooding because it has so much water coming in from so many different areas

This. Bull is the largest retention area on the system. When everything is big down south, they can't let as much water out of Bull. It also takes a lot of generation to drain Bull, so they'll keep water upstream as much as possible until they HAVE to send it to Bull Shoals. I don't think the tourism influence has much to do with it since the COE has the exclusive power to determine what do do when the lakes are above power pool. I could be wrong about that, but that's what I believe to be the case.

[sfiser]

bull is only 6-8 feet high at the moment if you look at how the lake levels were adjusted to compensate for minimum flow. John is exactly right when he says "if they let floodwater out of beaver they cant put it back". Historically, Beaver is the last lake to be emptied after high water events, that is why we have had some summers where its high into July and August. They have to regulate the system to have Beaver lakes water run through at a certain time, basically they have to wait till summer or time it between rain events in the spring and that is rather tricky.

The Corps has a masterplan online you can read about what they do during flooding, when they can let water go through the system, and how much can go through at certain periods to when they have to regulate water flow. It gets very technical and as we saw in 2011 it doesnt always work according to the master plan.

[JohnF52]

Since lower Branson flooded in 2011, I think there is political push to keep Table Rock from getting too high if at all possible. Lots of money was lost in and near Branson. Congressmen can influence the Corps by funding or not funding.