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Column | Alamo Lake full, but corps pulling the plug | Kingman Daily Miner

We all know that Arizona has great scenery all over the state thanks to the amount of rainfall it got this winter. Wildflowers are blooming everywhere.

Today, the state’s two major watersheds are influxing water so fast that dam operators are releasing millions of gallons of water into the normally dry riverbed.

These include the Salt River Basin, which feeds the lakes of central Arizona, and the Big Sandy and Santa Maria Rivers, which feed Lake Alamo.

The Alamo Dam was built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1968 primarily for flood control purposes. The Alamo Dam is an earth-filled dam that rises 283 feet above the riverbed. Alamo Lake covers approximately 17,000 acres and has a water capacity of 1,043,000 acre feet. It is located on the southern border of Mojave County.

Due to rain and thaw this year, the elevation of Lake Alamo on Sunday, March 19, 2023 was 1,142.84. It was 13.75 feet above the entire pool listed at an elevation of 1,129. In January 2023, the lake elevation was 1108 feet. The lake level has risen more than 34 feet since January.

The Alamo Lake is a flood control reservoir. That’s why it was built. It is under the control of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I don’t know how many times I’ve called the Corps of Engineers in Los Angeles for information, but I’ve been told:

This means you don’t have to worry about recreational users of the lake, such as boaters and anglers. Alamo Lake is he one of the best largemouth bass, crappie and catfish lakes in Arizona. Largemouth bass are now beginning to spawn, and low water levels in the lake will undoubtedly have a negative impact.

How it started!

Like many others in Arizona, I recently received reports that starting Monday, March 20, 2023, the Corps of Engineers will be spraying water at a much higher rate than normal. The normal discharge from the dam into the Bill Williams River is 25 cubic feet per second.

According to the announcement, “The Alamo Dam will begin discharging at a higher than normal base discharge rate on March 20, 2023. Once the lake exceeds the target water level NGVD of 1125, the Corps will reduce the discharge from the dam. It should be increased to lower lake levels and maintain sufficient space in reservoirs for flood risk management.”

This is what bothers me and it should be for you.

The Corps says it will begin by releasing water at a rate of 5,000 cubic feet per second and will slow the release to 2,750 cfs on Thursday, March 23. The release on March 24th puts him at 500 CFS and gradually he tapers off for 2 weeks until he reaches 235 CFS.

Legion says the higher release could last three to four months.

Over the past five years, Arizona has been hit by drought, withering landscapes and diminishing lakes and reservoirs.

I wondered how much water flows out of the Alamo Lake, into the normally dry Bill Williams River, and finally into Lake Havasu on the Colorado River.

I’m no good when it comes to math, but here’s what I’ve learned: If they’re pumping 5,000 cubic feet of water out of the Alamo Lake every second, that’s millions of gallons of water. One example I read of him was that 5,000 CFS equals over 37,000 gallons per second.

Consider what they are proposing in terms of lost water. Start at 5,000 cfs and work your way down to 2,750 cfs and then to 235 cfs.

They will continue this water release until they reach their target elevation of 1125. So we plan to drop this desert lake about 17 feet vertically.

We asked Pam Kostla, Operations Project Manager in Los Angeles, how much water is being released from Lake Alamo during these releases. I hope my numbers are wrong because that’s a ridiculous amount of water.

If you would like more information about what is happening at the Alamo Lake, please send your comments to alamodamSPL@usace.army.mil.

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