The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Northwestern Division will hold a public meeting Nov. 1 to discuss the 2011-2012 draft Annual Operating Plan for the Missouri River Mainstem Reservoir System. The report is now available on the Water Management Division’s website at: http://www.nwd-mr.usace.army.mil/rcc/aop.html
An afternoon open house will be held from 1 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., Nov. 1, at the Bismarck Best Western Ramkota Hotel, 800 South 3rd Street, to provide an informal session for members of the public and stakeholders to view displays and to speak with Corps officials on a one-on-one basis with subject matter experts regarding the 2011 flood, this year’s operation of the dams and reservoirs, and plans for operating the reservoir system in 2012.
An evening public meeting at 7:00 p.m. will include a presentation from the Corps followed by a question and answer session where attendees can comment on the draft plan and ask questions about current and future operations.
The draft plan anticipates evacuating the remainder of the floodwaters stored from this year’s flood event and returning the Mainstem Reservoir System to the base of its annual flood control pool prior to the start of the 2012 runoff season.
"The amount of runoff that came into the system this year was the highest level we have seen in 114 years of detailed record keeping," said Jody Farhat, Chief of the Missouri River Water Management Division. "Flood control has been the dominant force in our regulation of the reservoir system this year. We recently reached a milestone when releases from Gavins Point reached 40,000 cfs, which is slightly above its typical fall release rate. We intend to remain at that rate through the end of November when we will begin to slowly decrease releases to a winter rate of 20,000 cfs from Gavins Point."
Farhat said the Corps is still in floodwater evacuation mode and the next task is to continue releasing stored floodwaters between now and next spring to prepare the system to capture the runoff from Melting snow on the plains and in the mountains in 2012.
The draft plan anticipates that the system will reach the base of the annual flood control and multiple use pool by the end of February 2012. The annual flood control pool, which is the desired operating zone of the reservoir system, contains 11.6 million acre feet of storage and allows the Corps to operate for all of the eight congressionally authorized purposes: flood control, navigation, hydropower, irrigation, water supply, water quality control, recreation, and fish and wildlife. An additional 4.7 MAF of flood control storage is available in the exclusive flood control zones of the six Mainstem reservoirs. Together the two zones provide 16.3 MAF of available flood storage, the same amount that has been available since the inception of the reservoir system.