Water releases: Maximum releases expected to reach 1,800 cfs today; corps officials to depart

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The Army Corps of Engineers will increase releases from the Jamestown Dam by 100 cubic feet per second today, according to John Bartel, field officer for the James River basin for the corps. The increase will raise the combined releases to 1,800 cfs, the maximum planned for this spring.

Bartel made his report at the interagency meeting Tuesday at the Law Enforcement Center.

“Tomorrow (Wednesday) we’ll go up to 1,800 cfs and the system is operating as designed,” he said.

With the anticipated maximum sustained release reached the corps officials from Omaha who have been overseeing the construction of the dikes as part of the advanced measure program will leave Jamestown.

“We’ll be leaving Thursday,” Bartel said. “We leave the monitoring and maintenance of the dikes to the city of Jamestown.”

Some rain showers are in the forecast.

“The forecast is for about a quarter inch per day for the next couple of days,” he said. “The frost out of the ground will help with the rain. It shouldn’t impact anything concerning the lake or river levels.”

Reed Schwartzkopf, city engineer, agreed.

“We’re pretty awfully darn comfortable where we are,” he said. “It would take a fairly magnificent runoff event to change the river situation.”

Schwartzkopf said the volume of water moving through the river is impacting the sewer system.

“We’re now a shade over 3 million gallons per day,” he said, referring to the sewage passing through the main lift station.

Similar measurements last week reported 2 million gallons per day. The additional 1 million gallons is assumed to be groundwater seeping into sewer pipes in Jamestown.

“Nothing is under duress now,” Schwartzkopf said. “But some lift stations are showing more run times.”

Schwartzkopf did suggest if the amount of sewage pumped by the main lift station reaches 4 million gallons per day the city may request a voluntary system of sewage use reduction from the public. Last year the city requested people limit major inputs to the sewer such as clothes and dish washing. The system was based on house numbers and the calendar date.

Jim Reuther, fire chief and sandbag coordinator, said all sandbag filling operations have been suspended. The equipment used to fill sandbags will remain in place at Wilson Arena and Jamestown High School for the time being.

Jamestown currently has about 16,000 filled sandbags in reserve.

Sun reporter Keith Norman can be reached at (701) 952-8452 or by e-mail at knorman@jamestownsun.com

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