Cooler temps help keep pool in dam low
The dock on the Kootenai River at the Deep Creek mouth, Monday. Usually this dock is accessible without getting wet. The nearly submerged sign next to the dock is about fishing restrictions.
Anyone driving over the Kootenai bridge can see that the river looks dramatically high.
What is not seen though is the delicate balance being maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers at Libby Dam and Mother Nature, which is keeping the river barely below flood stage.
As of Wednesday morning the Kootenai River was at 1,763.4 feet. Flood stage is 1,764 feet.
“The weather has been cooperative,” said Mick Shea, Libby Dam superintendent.
“We have been able to keep the pool above the dam low with the cooler temperatures and have only seen an increase in Koocanusa inflow for the past 10 days.”
Shea said they have seen about a 2.4 foot a day rise in the inflows since June 5.
This means that the Libby Dam discharge flows have been increased to 25,000 cubic feet per second from 16,000 cfs two weeks ago.
The increase is made in order to move as much water down the river as possible before inflows start to really increase with warmer weather, while at the same time trying to keep the Kootenai River at or below flood stage.
“We typically see 8 million feet of run off for the season and we have only seen 3.2 million thus far,” Shea said. “Not quite half way, but so far so good.”
Shea said when looking at the Kootenai River’s height and the sand bags along the bank it looks scary but the river is still 6/10 from actual flood stage.
The weather forecast is cooler for the next few days which has been good. This could change as early as next week.
“It looks like summer may actually start on the longest day of the year, June 21, when we should hit 77, and may even hit 81 on the 22,” Shea said. “This is when we will start to see inflows jump.”