By Dewey Terrill
JC Post
Milford Lake is currently at 1170.39 elevation, approximately 26 feet over normal conservation pool. At 1173 permission could possibly be granted to allow the Corps of Engineers to release water through the tubes equal to the amount of water coming in. At 1176.2 feet water could escape the lake through the emergency spillway. Right now the reservoir is in Phase Two out of three possible phases for flood control, and is at 78% of its flood storage capacity.
Milford Lake has been at low flow, releasing only 25 cubic feet per second since March 12th. The reservoir currently has a 29,000 acre lake surface area, considerably above the normal 17.500 surface acres. The inflow as of Wednesday totaled 7,900 cubic feet per second but that amount goes up and down. Corps has been required to hold water in Milford and other reservoirs to prevent downstream flooding. The bottleneck is at Waverly, Missouri where the water flow must dip below 130,000 cubic feet per second before there can be any releases, but that has not happened at Waverly since March.
Approximately 110 people attended a public meeting at the Geary County 4-H / Senior Center Wednesday evening to hear the explanation from the Corps about the water management in the Missouri River basin and what to expect at Milford Lake. Obviously concern about potential flooding was on their minds.
The Operations Manager for the Corps at Milford Lake, Bill Whitworth, confirmed right now officials are in increased surveillance mode. “Which means we pay extra attention to the gauges below the dam to make sure that the dam is functioning properly. When the water level reaches 1173, which isn’t too far away, probably next week at some point, we go into critical surveillance mode which means 24-hours a day somebody will be monitoring gauges and just keeping an eye on things.” Whitworth added no problems are expected, but that’s the measure taken at that level.
Whitworth said at 1176.2, which is the uncontrolled spillway, that’s when releases are going to happen ( out of the spillway ). “Yet to be determined if we can discharge any additional ( through the tubes ). ” He also noted, “When space opens up downstream we will get an allocation of that space, Milford, and release when we can.”
There was extensive flooding in 1993 with water from Milford Lake winding up on Grant Avenue in Junction City, and when the Republican River running out of the reservoir met the Smoky Hill River looping around the south and east sides of Junction City water topped the levees and ended up in what was farm ground area on the east side of the city. Whitworth believes some of the1993 conditions are not replicated today. “When we release water out of Milford through the tubes the intent is to keep it within the banks at least for the short term to just match what is coming in so we have an easy managed flow.” He is optimistic flooding of businesses on the north end of the city will not occur. “Right now the opinion is that we’re not looking at 1993. What we can’t predict is what’s going to happen with the Smoky Hill.
If the Republican and Smoky Hill Rivers meet and water backs up there was some concern about impact of that on the Milford Nature Center near the dam. But Whitworth noted that if the Smoky Hill River levels go down that would relieve a lot of the pressure on the river system.
So it’s unknown if flooding will occur, but Geary County Emergency Management Director Garry Berges stated, “The main thing is going to be the effect with the Smoky Hill, how much that water’s going to go down and then start backing up.”He added authorities will just have to monitor that to see how it affects the Grant Avenue and Hoover Road areas.