The Army Corps of Engineers said recent rainfall has caused water levels at Center Hill and Dale Hollow Lakes to be higher than usual for the winter.
Civil Engineer Robert Dillingham said despite a summer and fall drought both lakes were close to normal levels heading into the winter as the Corps of Engineers were able to control the levels using lake reservoirs. Dillingham said with recent rainfall at one point this month, the Dale Hollow Reservoir had risen 11-12 feet. Dillingham said recent rains have put them on a close watch for potential flooding risk especially at Dale Hollow Lake.
“We are a little high right now again it’s not concerningly high at all but to be elevation 650 in mid-February is a little higher than I want to be,” Dillingham said. “So we will continue to be pretty aggressive in our relief there to try to draw it down a little bit.”
Dillingham said Center Hill Lake is also experiencing high levels for mid-February but since recent storms have been more towards the northern portion of the Upper Cumberland Center Hill has not been as much of a concern. Dillingham said though Center Hill can rise quickly he is not worried about the high water levels as much because Center Hill’s Dam has much better discharge capabilities compared to the Dale Hollow.
“We have three turbines there and their capacities are a lot greater than those at Dale Hollow,” Dillingham said. “So currently we are drawing it down. We are actually down about three feet, two and a half feet or so off of where it crested and we will be aggressive in drawing that thing down.”
Dillingham said he expects Center Hill to be back to normal levels sometime in March. Dillingham said due to higher levels the Corps of Engineers turned the Dale Hollow Dam into zero release ahead of the most recent thunderstorm.
“For the City of Celina just downstream you can think about that,” Dillingham said. “We were reducing the flow in the river, in the Obed River, and also the Cumberland River with the confluence there in Celina by significant portions. We certainly mitigated a lot of devastating flooding down there just by having Dale Hollow going into zero-release for this rainfall event.”
Dillingham said heavy rains in the spring months are a big reason why water levels were not drastically affected by the summer and fall drought. Dillingham said with that need for heavy rainfall in the spring months he would be more concerned if we had a spring drought compared to a summer and fall drought.
