Wet forecast halts refill of lakes

Entergy Arkansas Inc. said Monday that it has temporarily suspended the refill of lakes Hamilton and Catherine in anticipation of significant rainfall this week.

"When we get a forecast for a big rain, we normally would do a drawdown, but we already have a drawdown, so we're just going to hold where we're at," said Ted Smethers, Entergy's senior technical support specialist.

"If it rains like they are talking about, the lakes will fill up pretty quickly, but this gives us a little working room," he said.

Smethers said that, with the possibility of heavy rains and flash floods for much of the week, the utility began releasing 3,600 cubic feet of water per second from Blakely, Carpenter and Remmel dams. Once the rain begins, releases will be adjusted as needed in response to the increased inflow.

That typically means releases will be stopped at Blakely Dam and increased at Carpenter and Remmel dams. Smethers said if the area has a steady rain event, Entergy will allow the lakes to slowly refill toward the end of the week.

A flash flood event could cause a very rapid lake level rise, especially on Lake Catherine, and lakefront property owners should prepare and take precautions to secure docks and boats, Entergy says.

Smethers said Entergy began to return lakes Hamilton and Catherine to normal summertime elevations on Saturday, and the lakes had already risen about a foot.

"But, we'll kind of let the rain take care of the fill-up and this kind of gives us a cushion if we have a flash flood."

Even though the lakes are still near the wintertime drawdown level, Smethers said the storage capacity is very minor.

"They will fill up in a heartbeat. The amount of water we may get is way more than what we can store," he said.

He said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will stop releasing water from Blakely Mountain Dam when the rainfall level reaches 2 inches, or the flow from Remmel Dam exceeds 13,000 cfs.

"What I want to do is keep the river full. I don't want to go from minimal flow to a flood issue," Smethers said. "I want to keep the flow of the river constant, and as floodwaters come into Lake Hamilton, we'll back Blakely off. They are a flood control lake and can hold the extra water. Our lakes aren't big enough and the dams weren't designed for flood storage."

Smethers said Entergy would activate its high-water notification plan if the releases from the dams exceed 15,000 cfs, but "it doesn't really start impacting folks until they get to 25,000 to 30,000 cfs."

"If the rain is spread out over the week, we'll have a lot of water but it won't be a big flood. The 1990 flood is the one everyone remembers, but that was 13 inches in eight hours," he said.

Local on 03/08/2016

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