By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Water releases from Gavins Point Dam are being increased as the Missouri River recedes.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had increased releases from Gavins Point to 90,000 cubic feet per second around the middle of the month to relieve flooding pressure from Nebraska, raising the level of the Missouri River downstream. It began gradually reducing releases as flooding concerns eased in Nebraska, but never reduced the releases to the 20,000 mark the Corps had set for itself.
Releases from Gavins Point have been at 24,000 cfs since March 20th.
The Corps this weekend announced it would increase releases to 27,000 cfs.
The Corps reports the mountain snowpack remains average and the plains snow melt in the upper basin of the Missouri River is beginning.
“We are beginning to see the plains snow melt in the upper basin with runoff into all of the upper storage reservoirs. We are monitoring these conditions and while there will at times be a rapid rise in pool elevations, we have 14.4 maf or 88 percent of the flood storage capacity available to capture runoff,” John Remus, chief of the Corps’ Missouri River Water Management Division, said in a written statement released by the Corps.
An updated basin runoff forecast will be released on April 1, according to the Corps.