Cristobal Moisture

[netboy]

Looking better for the White river watershed.

The COE issued a dire warning yesterday.... but things change.

https://ozarkflyfisherjournal.wordpress.com/2020/06/07/corp-warns-of-large-damaging-cristobal-releases/

 

[Phil Lilley]

Keeps moving east... but still I don't trust it.  Still nervous.  Bought plywood at Lowe's tonight... and a lot of caulk.

 

[MickinMO]

3 hours ago, netboy said:

Looking better for the White river watershed.

The COE issued a dire warning yesterday.... but things change.

https://ozarkflyfisherjournal.wordpress.com/2020/06/07/corp-warns-of-large-damaging-cristobal-releases/

 

And yet, they could have been passing more water though and keeping the White from potentially becoming ridiculous. But no, they backed it off once the lakes dipped just below flood pool setting up a situation when any large widespread rainfall could have destructive consequences from from NW Arkansas to New Orleans. Corps plays russian roulette. 

[Ham]

There has to be a Big Picture explanation. There has to be pieces to this puzzle that we aren’t aware of. Because on the surface this makes absolutely no sense. At a minimum, they could have kept running 20K 24 hours a day for the last handful of days. That 50K water could have been 30K water which would not have flooded resorts. 
property owners along the White are likely to suffer a big hit.

[Quillback]

You have to remember that they regulate according to the Newport Gauge which is at 22.5 feet right now.  They can't release significant water under normal circumstances until the gauge reaches 14 feet.  On top of that they won't release based on forecasts.  So in a nutshell that is the logic.  Not saying I agree with this, but that's the way it works.  

[Phil Lilley]

According to their "rules", nothing really can be done about these releases NOW.  The action that's needed should have happened earlier in the year when they could have released water without restriction.  In other words, work to keep the lakes lower in the winter.  Reset the power pool levels - drop them by 5 feet?  If the minimum flow below BS that added several feet to the PP's of all 3 lakes above it is causing some of this flooding, then do away with it and drop the PP to what they were.  This will help but I think they should drop them by even more.  Better to have low levels in the summer than killer releases...

[Quillback]

Literally takes an act of Congress to get them to change operating procedure.  And I have to wonder if these late winter,  spring rains are now the new normal.  If so, I agree that they need to get the water out of here when they can early in the year.  

[Devan S.]

To Phil's point......the real solution would be to drop winter pool levels although I'm not sure 5 ft would be sufficient. 5 ft of water from normal pool in any of the lakes in really a pretty small amount of water when we are considering the amounts of water required for 1 ft at top of flood pool.

Based on this you could guess roughly that 5ft at Table Rock would be less than 35% so maybe significant or maybe not. 5ft at BS is going to clearly be less than 10% gain in water volumes. Just based on volumes though BS has 3X the AC-FT storage so the 10% at Table Rock is really minuscule at BS. Maybe it helps maybe it doesn't. 

Do this though....and the rain doesn't come....can you imagine the squawking about the low water?

Also a reminder.....BS was at 660 in mid-March and only Beaver was really above normal. 

[Jerry Rapp]

1 hour ago, Devan S. said:

To Phil's point......the real solution would be to drop winter pool levels although I'm not sure 5 ft would be sufficient. 5 ft of water from normal pool in any of the lakes in really a pretty small amount of water when we are considering the amounts of water required for 1 ft at top of flood pool.

Based on this you could guess roughly that 5ft at Table Rock would be less than 35% so maybe significant or maybe not. 5ft at BS is going to clearly be less than 10% gain in water volumes. Just based on volumes though BS has 3X the AC-FT storage so the 10% at Table Rock is really minuscule at BS. Maybe it helps maybe it doesn't. 

Do this though....and the rain doesn't come....can you imagine the squawking about the low water?

Also a reminder.....BS was at 660 in mid-March and only Beaver was really above normal. 

very good post

 

[Devan S.]

Just a follow up. I am thinking something like 5 ft. drop for Beaver, 5-10 ft. drop for Table Rock, and 10-15 ft. drop for Bull Shoals to get to something that matters in prevent flooding in a year like this where we currently stand 30-40% ahead on rainfall. 

 

Which begs the question...during a winter draw down starting in say October/November the #1 user base on the lakes is who? Fisherman. Meaning the people most disrupted by low levels and the chance at having un-usable infrastructure is you guessed it....fishermen. 

Even then your talking only a winter draw down so at what date do you allow a higher normal pool? After May? We were near normal back in mid-March so it would have to be adjust sometime during late May I would think.