“Our water levels have never been so high…” ???
Recent rains are causing many to have questions about water levels. As a result the Coalition for Equitable Water Flow (CEWF) released the following update:
2019 is turning out to be another year of high spring water levels and widespread flooding in eastern Canada, similar to 2013 and 2017.
We have had, and are facing record rainfalls onto saturated and even frozen ground, with more snow in some areas. The rains have covered the whole Trent River Basin from Haliburton to Lake Ontario. Even though the reservoirs were kept quite low in anticipation of a late melt and possible rainfall events, as of the last week of April the lakes are full and being overfilled to try to reduce flooding in areas downstream.
At the Coalition, we often hear people say “the water level on my lake has never been so high” when in fact that may not be the case. To get a perspective this year’s water levels, it may be helpful to look at the charts for 2013 and 2017 which are available on the CEWF website. Look at the top right hand side of this CEWF home web page and click on the link for the year of interest.
The TSW has been providing regular water management updates and we encourage residents to keep reading these, but also to take a look back to get a better understanding of the similarities and differences in each of these high spring water level years.
From the KLCOA
At the KLCOA we work hard to ensure the latest updates from the CEWF and TSW are posted on our website on a timely basis. Just over two weeks back the concerns of residents were quite different. People were asking why water levels were so low.
Here is a post from April 17th – article
Kennisis Status
Through March and early April the TSW/Parks Canada team kept our water levels well below historic averages. In mid April multiple logs were put in place and our water levels started to rise. This change from the usual pattern meant that through late April no water from the Kennisis Lakes was able to flow downstream from our lakes – and contribute to flooding issues in some communities. Kennisis water levels rose more than one and half meters in just two weeks. As of the morning of May 3 Kennisis water levels are high – but still short of the high level water marks reached in 2017. We could exceed the 2017 levels in the next few days but that will depend on the amount of rain received in this area.
For those not at the lake – as of 10 a.m. on May 3 there is still considerable ice on the big lake although there are large areas of open water.