Corps Watching Lake Levels As Dry Weather Persists

By MJ Kneiser, WLHR Radio, Lavonia

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Savannah District said it is expecting a near normal season on reservoir lakes, despite lower-than-average rainfall.

Numbers show that the last three months of 2015 brought with it a surge of precipitation that exceeded normal rainfall by more than 200 percent across the upper Savannah River Basin.

At Lake Thurmond in particular, December rainfall approached 300 percent of normal, soaking the basin a final time before Spring and saturating soil to its capacity.

That has kept the reservoirs at full pool so far.

However, Corps Spokesman Russell Wicke said since December, the basin has experienced below average rainfall every month resulting in a 7-inch deficit between Hartwell and Thurmond through April.

“For the first four month of 2016 we had 60% of normal rainfall and that’s very low,” Wicke said. “But because we had so much rain in the fall, the reservoirs continued to benefit off of the rain. The water in the soil just gradually over time turned into run off and was going into the reservoir.”

Wicke said that if the area does not start getting more normal rainfall amounts, the lake levels at Hartwell and Thurmond will continue to drop over the summer months.

“Now that the soil has yielded up most of that extra water, we’re still not getting average or above average rainfall,” Wicke said. “So if we continue to get below-average rainfall, the reservoir levels will begin to gradually start dropping now. And if this trend continues throughout the summer, then you can expect to see the reservoirs several feet lower than what they are right now.”

However, Wicke said that should not have any significant impact on people coming up to enjoy waters of Hartwell Lake this summer.

“It looks that way now; especially for the first part of summer you can be pretty confident that the water levels are going to be high enough to support a good amount of recreation,” Wicke explained. “But if we continue to get less than 80% of normal rainfall, by August we should be down about two feet. Still, that’s still an exceptional level for recreation.”

Wicke said that even if the level drops two feet on Lake Hartwell by August, it is still not enough for the Corps to initiate its Drought Trigger Level 1 protocol.

He said the level at Hartwell would have to drop at least four feet before that happens.