The water level at Milford Lake is expected to rise by several feet.

The Corps of Engineers was required to reduce outflow from the lake down to 25 cubic feet per second on Thursday because the Missouri River went above flood stage at Waverly, Missouri. In addition a big influx of water is headed down the Republican River toward Milford Lake.

R. J. Harms, Project Operations Manager for the Corps at Milford Lake said they see about 10,000 cubic feet per second coming in at the Clay Center gate, meaning the Republican River is bringing a lot of water to the reservoir. “The Lake obviously is going to come up quite a bit. ” Harms also added,”We expect since we shut off our releases and we have a huge amount of water coming in that the Lake is going to rise several feet before it’s done.”

The reservoir is currently two feet above normal conservation level, which does not have much impact. But Harms says when it gets five to seven feet high there could be problems with access to some boat ramps, and some roads in campgrounds that might be closed off.

Harms said people need to be aware of the lake level and the trend…which in this case involves a rising water level.