With Rain, Dam is Opened Again

Just received another call from the caretaker of the dam, Fuddy. He had closed the gate of the dam earlier in the week down to one inch. Today he opened the gate back to 8 inches to get rid of yesterday’s rain. But most importantly we are already up to where we should be for this time of year. Yes! Already up to where we should be this time of year!

Some may say we are still too low but if you take a look there are a few reasons to keep it down… docks legs are in the water at King’s Campground (not good with freezing weather ahead, water flowing from the watershed quickly brings us up (it was flowing like a brook down the hill from Lake Manchaug Camping to the lake), my neighbor is just one of many going through the hearing process to clean up their beach area, and others are still repairing walls and docks, and we use lake level drawdown to reduce the aquatic weed growth.

Remember that here at Manchaug Pond, one inch of rain brings us up 10 inches with the run-off from the watershed. Fuddy reports using the same system this year as they have for 23 years. He reports the lake went up 6 inches with just this last rainfall on Thanksgiving. If he hadn’t opened it, the water level would have come up a foot plus. Further, Fuddy reports we have had 4 1/2 inches in 2 weeks. If he hadn’t opened the gate, we would have come up about 4 feet!