FLOOD DANGER LURKS IN FULL RESERVOIRS
Monday, February 25, 2008

Here we are again, the New York reservoirs are 100 and 101 percent full. New York City decided to close down the aqueduct to New York for repairs. That is the only means they have for diverting reservoir water away from the Delaware. They didn't even have the decency to lower the reservoirs before they shut down the aqueduct.

Now we can all sit here and wait to see what spring brings us downstream. The ground is frozen, there is lots of snow pack in New York state and the reservoirs are full.

The Delaware Riverside Conservancy hired Lafayette College hydrologist Roger Ruggles to do a computer study of the April 2005 flood. He determined the reservoirs without doubt could have saved at least 6 feet of water and likely more than that, had they been 80 percent full like they used to be. Please go towww.drconline.org to see the information.

This information was presented to the Delaware River Basin Commission and elected officials, and most did nothing to help the situation. Nothing.

The DRBC implemented a useless program, the flexible flow management plan, which doesn't allow for rainfall or snow pack melt in their releases which means the reservoirs will continue to be full during the wettest times of the year, just begging for more flooding.

What good is the newly touted "snow pillow" monitoring the snow pack at the reservoirs if they are not going to release the water?

Why do we have to have another flood for people to wake up to the reality that this can be avoided, as it was from 1955 to 2004, when the reservoirs were kept at 80 percent or lower? If you go to the NYDEP reservoir Web page you can see that the usual fill is in the 80 percent range. Not now. Something is very wrong with this picture.

Nancy Shappell
Bangor