Dropping Water Elevels

[medc808]

Been fishing on the lake for about a year now, and watching the water level drop over 12 feet in less than a month, I was concerned. Water gage shows that the level is the same so I inquired, and this is the answer they gave me..

"On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 6:53 AM, Ronald L Rickman wrote:
Good morning,

The USGS operates this gage for the State Department of Land and Natural Resources for flood warning purposes. Our primary water-level sensor is out of water at 68.86 feet. We can't put it lower because there is nothing solid to attach the sensor to and the sensor has to be able to survive a major flood without any movement. We do have a down-looking radar water level sensor we use as a back-up that reads much lower but is prone to reporting large, erroneous spikes if floating debris, boats, etc interfere with the signal. We certainly don't want to show false high values on the web that might trigger an unnecessary evacuation downstream. FYI, the water-level reported from the radar unit this morning at 5:45 a.m. HST was 67.43 feet (provisional data, subject to revision). The 6:00 a.m. water level showed 98.52 feet, a false spike due to interference from debris. The spillway elevation is 80.00 feet so you can see why we don't want to show a false spike 18.52 feet higher than the spillway!

The USGS has no involvement with day to day operation of the reservoir so we're unable to answer your other questions. "

[roadwarriorsvt]

WOW! I'm impressed at the time they took to give such a lengthy, complete answer. This is unlike many other government agencies.

[Stan Wright]

The state (and Dole, who owns the lake) is afraid of a flood like the one on Kauai several years ago that killed those people. They agreed that the 68 foot level should be the "normal" level of the lake. In case of a "100 Year Flood" that would give them time to warn/evacuate those people that are illegally living in the flood zone near Wailua.

That's the story I heard.

[Bozu]

So the 64 dollar question is ?
Is anyone from Dole Corp. physically checking the water at the Dam on a
daily basis, or are they just relying on data from the USGS site ?

As we have learned from medc808 's post, the USGS gauge bottoms out
at the 69 foot level. Hopefully whoever is responsible for regulating the outlet valve is cognizant of the fact that the water level can be lower than
what can be registered on the USGS monitoring equipment.

Hey where did all the water go...no worry brah the monitoring equipment says 69 feet. But I no can launch my boat...look brah
the graph say 69 feet so must be 69 feet