Water Level Lowered

Posted: October 11, 2005 in General

On October 9 at 8pm, Northeast Generation dropped the lake due to heavy flooding up the Housatonic River. No warning was provided to the FOTL and we are working with the LLA and Northeast Generation on better communications and will keep our membership posted. In the meantime, Northeast Generation emailed us the following explanation: “About this latest storm. During the day, NGS received rain estimates from the National Weather Service in Albany "from 1 to 3 inches", however, the actual rainfall amounts exceeded 9 inches in Falls Village, 8 inches at Bulls Bridge, 6 inches at Rocky River, 6 inches at Lake Lillinonah, and 6 inches at Lake Zoar. Most of the rainfall occurred later in the day as it downpoured during Saturday evening and during the early morning hours of Sunday. NGS was unaware of the threat of substantially higher amounts of rainfall since we followed the information from the National Weather Service, the Weather Channel, and other sources. There was little to no warning before the rainfall occurred, therefore, NGS had to react quickly to minimize water damage in New Milford. To do this, NGS needs to lower the water level of Lake Lillinonah. Our FERC approved procedures require that we lower Lake Lillinonah to elevation 186.0 feet if 4 inches of rain is predicted. We have only lowered the lake to 189.2 feet for this weather situation. There is some water across route 7 in New Milford right now. If we believe that it will rise higher, we will lower Lake Lillinonah to accomplish this. We are in a wait and see mode right now. The Housatonic River is a flashy river, as we just experienced. The flows that we were experiencing last night were dangerously high for people to be out in the river. Even if we had sent out a blanket notification message at 6:00 p.m. there might have been many people who couldn't safely take their boats out. Not to mention that many wouldn't have been home. At 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, the inflow to Shepaug was at 316 cfs; at 3:00 p.m. it was at 1,011 cfs, by 11:00 p.m. it was at about 11,000 cfs, ten times the flow just 8 hours prior! Presently, the inflow to Lake Lillinonah is about 20,300 cfs and shouldn't get much higher, however, another 2 to 3 inches of rain is expected by the end of Wednesday, so I don't see the lake level being brought up significantly over the next several days, in fact, we may need to lower the lake level even further. We are doing are best to hold the current lake level and have in fact started closing down some of the floodgate opening. This may change based on the rainfall over the next couple days. I will keep you informed.” We know you have many more questions that need answering. When will the water come back up? Is the schedule draw down postponed? We are working on those answers and others. In the meantime, If you know someone on the lake who is not a FOTL member we encourage you to forward this to them, as well as urge them join our group. This will insure that they are notified in the future with the rest of our membership base.