Lake's Water Level To Be Lowered Through This Year

[cmherndon]

Army corps says safety must rank above tourism
By Bill Estep


Burnside Marina on Lake Cumberland will be forced to move to stay afloat. The lake will drop to 680 feet above sea level; its normal summer level is 723 feet.

SOMERSET - The dam that impounds Lake Cumberland is leaking and at high risk of failure, so the water level will be kept far lower than usual this summer to ease pressure on the structure while workers begin repairs, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced yesterday.

In what it called an emergency move, the corps will lower the lake level to 680 feet above sea level in the next few days and keep it there the rest of the year. The normal summer lake level is 723 feet.

The corps might have to lower the lake more, depending on how the 680-foot level affects the dam, the agency said in a news release.

The 101-mile-long lake is the centerpiece of the regional tourism economy, generating what state officials said was an annual impact of more than $150 million in Pulaski, Russell, Wayne and Clinton counties alone. Tourism interests are concerned that the lower water level will hurt visitation and profits this summer.

However, the Corps of Engineers said public safety has to come first.

"This decision is based on what we feel is a high-risk situation," said Bill Peoples, spokesman for the Nashville office of the corps, which manages the giant lake.

Part of the 56-year-old dam on the Cumberland River is a massive, traditional concrete structure that includes a power-generating station. The other part is an earthen embankment about three-quarters of a mile long.

The foundation of the earthen section is leaking.

The corps announced a $309 million plan in 2005 to pour a thick concrete wall inside that part of the dam to stop the seepage.

At the time, corps officials said there was only a remote chance the dam could fail, and they thought the agency could keep the lake near normal levels in the summer tourist season while doing the work.

Officials said the stability of the dam hasn't changed since then. But the way the corps assesses risk has changed, based in part on lessons learned from the failure of levees in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, Peoples said.

High risk, not imminent risk

Officials don't want people to panic, however. Saying there is a high risk that the dam will fail does not mean there is an imminent risk of failure, said Don Franklin, Area 12 manager for the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management.

If the corps didn't make the planned repairs, Franklin said, "Ten years from now you wouldn't want to be near it."

Even if the dam failed, officials said, fears of a deadly wall of water rushing downstream are not accurate. Residents downstream would still have some time to evacuate if the dam washed out, Franklin said.

For instance, at Creelsboro, the closest community below the dam, residents would have perhaps an hour to move out, he said.

And in Burkesville, the first town below the dam, the water wouldn't breach the banks of the river for eight hours, Franklin said.

"If things go as we have planned, there's no reason anyone should be injured" if the dam failed, Franklin said.

That's a best-case scenario -- everyone in the potential flood area has an alert radio, hears the alert right away, and moves out.

Peoples said corps studies predict some deaths if the dam failed. He would not release the number, but said the estimate is small.

Franklin said emergency officials recommend that everyone below the dam have an NOAA weather radio, because right now that's how the initial alert would be broadcast. Police and emergency officials would also use loudspeakers to warn people, Franklin said.

Peoples said officials will look at putting in other alert systems. Communities near some other corps dams have warning sirens, for instance, he said.

Federal, state and local officials began making new emergency plans 18 months ago, after the corps figured out seepage under the dam had gotten worse.

Burkesville Mayor Keith Riddle said local officials have practiced evacuating students, hospital patients and others as part of the local emergency plan.

"There's definitely concerns" about the potential for the dam to fail, Riddle said. "Everything we've got is right on the river."

The corps estimates that a failure at Wolf Creek Dam would cause $3.4 billion in property damage along the Cumberland River. Most of that would be in Nashville, where floodwater could soak downtown even 270 river miles from the dam.

The plan to fix the dam includes pumping grout into it to try to seal the leaks, reducing erosion until the new concrete wall is finished as a way of preventing future leaks.

The corps speeded up the grouting program to start work last week, Peoples said.

The corps spent nearly $100 million in the 1960s and mid-1970s to repair similar leaks with grout and a concrete barrier inside the earthen dam. The fix didn't last.

However, the new wall will be much longer and deeper than the first one, and the corps has better techniques available than 30 years ago, Peoples said.

The corps will keep the water level at 680 feet the rest of the year. This fall, officials will evaluate whether the grout work has increased the reliability of the dam and will use the information to decide how deep the water can be next year, Peoples said.

The corps projects that it will take seven years to finish the new concrete barrier at the dam. However, because of the new risk assessment, the corps plans to ask Congress to fully fund the project more quickly.

If Congress approves the request, the repair job could be done in five years, Peoples said.

Marina operators get moving

The Corps of Engineers told marina operators Thursday that water would be low this summer, and they've been scrambling the last few days to begin moving and reconfiguring docks so boats and support facilities won't settle into the mud as the lake drops.

The docks are like little cities, providing utilities such as water and electricity to houseboats. Moving them can be an expensive chore. In some cases, marinas will have to build new facilities or extend boat-launching ramps to reach to where the water will be, operators said.

Willy and Gigi Zink, who own Buck Creek Boat Dock on the upper reaches of the lake in Pulaski County, had to move their entire facility because they would have had little water at 680 feet, Gigi Zink said.

Her husband and helpers, using three boats, yesterday began towing the ship store, 140 slips, two covered marinas and the bathrooms down the lake to a new site about eight miles away by water, Zink said.

"It was a lot of work" to get ready for the move, she said. And, she added, it will cost $20,000 to move the dock gas tank.

The Corps of Engineers estimated the lower lake level would cause an estimated $9.4 million loss in direct spending at businesses such as marinas, and a $3.4 million loss in personal income, Peoples said.

Those losses will show up in everything from reduced houseboat rentals to gas and food sales and repair services, said Mark Blakeman, manager at Alligator Dock 1 in Russell County. "The whole community's going to be affected," he said.

Gov. Ernie Fletcher announced yesterday that he had set up a group to study the impact of the lower lake level on tourism, fishing, a trout hatchery below the dam and even city water intakes, and come up with a plan to try to lessen the impact.

James Flatt, general manager of Indian Hills Resort-Alligator 2 Marina in Russell County, said incorrect ideas about the lake level might be a bigger problem than the low water itself. Tourism interests will have to battle the perception that Lake Cumberland has dried up, he said.

At the normal summer pool of 723 feet, Lake Cumberland has about 50,000 surface acres. At 680, it will have 35,000 surface acres, George Ward, secretary of the Kentucky Commerce Cabinet, said at a news conference yesterday.

Even at 680 feet, Flatt said, the lake will be larger than most.

"We're still going to have plenty of water to play in," he said.

[butch]

When Emmett, Caleb, and I were at Burnside this time last year ( http://jreb.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=806 ), the lake level was about 687 ft.  It is currently four feet higher at about 691 ft., but the article says it is going to go down and be maintained about 680 ft. which will expose even more of old Burnside.  Should be quite the treat for those interested in the history of the old town, and those interested in trying to find the old Cincinnati, Burnside, & Cumberland River Railway ROW.