Due to recent rainfall and high inflows from Tropical Storm Andrea, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will increase outflows at the Thurmond Dam to 20,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) by Monday, June 10. Outflows will also increase at Hartwell and Russell.
Our water managers anticipate the pools to continue to climb throughout the next few days, pushing the reservoir levels further into flood storage.
As of this writing, Hartwell Lake is 1.1 feet into its flood storage, with a total elevation of 661.06 ft-msl. Russell and Thurmond are both within inches of full pool; and we anticipate Thurmond to levels to reach flood storage levels before the end of today. Additionally, as of this writing the Broad River is flowing at 3,300 cfs—another indicator of high inflow to the basin.
We issued a revised declaration on June 7. The new declaration projects the pools rising well into flood storage, requiring increased releases from all three dams. In addition to inflows from Andrea, weather forecasts show the possibility of another front moving into the basin from the Midwest. Even so, this significant increase in releases won’t keep the reservoirs completely out of flood storage levels, but it will help maintain them at full pool while freeing additional flood storage space for more precipitation.
The revised declaration calls for an increase in outflows at the Hartwell Dam to 13,000 cfs starting Monday, June 10. Also on Monday, the Russell Dam will increase outflows to 15,180 cfs and the Thurmond Dam will increase outflows to 20,000 cfs. Generally these outflows amount to what we are receiving in inflows. View the complete declaration on our water management website at http://water.sas.usace.army.mil
Our water managers said they anticipate releasing another revised declaration within the next few days as we continue to adjust our operations based on observed inflows to the system and changing weather forecasts. This will also change our 10-week pool projections. Stay tuned for more updates on Balancing the Basin. Thanks for reading us.