Tuttle Creek Lake levels out after mostly dry winter

Lake levels are about where they should be for this time of year at Tuttle Creek Lake.

After falling to about 9 feet below normal pool in January, the lake has rebounded to about 3.5 feet below normal pool as of this week. US Army Corps of Engineers Operations Manager Brian McNulty was on KMAN’s In Focus Wednesday and provided an update on the current lake conditions.

“I think the flow at Topeka is 800 cubic feet per second and we’re releasing 350 cubic feet per second of that out of storage at the lake. Fortunately, the inflow’s about that same amount (350 cfs), so the lake’s been leveled out for the last several weeks,” he said.

McNulty says the stilling basin, which includes a large swath of south central Nebraska, remains in severe drought.

“We had one set of good storms probably six or eight weeks ago. That was where we took most of the water in, from that storm. That helped the drought monitor, but things have dried out again, so it would be good to have some rain,” he said.

The lake is drawn down during the winter months to free up storage for the anticipated wetter spring and summer months between April and July. The normal conservation pool is 1,075 feet.

“Another reason we pull the lake down in the winter is with the wave action and the wind from the north, it allows the rip-rap (large rock on the face of the dam) to dry out and we don’t have as much freeze-thaw damage on the large rock on the dam,” he said.

 Historically, the top four months for highest inflows at Tuttle Creek Lake is April, May, July and June. July is ahead of June because of the record event in 1993.

McNulty says ongoing rip-rap overlay rock work on the front face of the dam is ahead of schedule, however they’ve exhausted the rock supply at its quarry.

“There’s some requirements in the contract about the production of that rock. There’s a winter shutdown period for the quarry. Basically it comes out of the ground with moisture in it and if you set it up on the ground with the freeze-thaw action, it actually damages the rock and we want to avoid that as it’s expensive to buy and place. We want it to go in in the best condition we can,” he said.

Rock placement will resume in the late spring on the remaining 800 feet of the the 7,500 foot project. The new rock replaces the dam’s original rock placed over 60 years ago.