Return of The Big Mac
Date Jun 17, 2010 | Topic: Local News
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By Beatriz Reyna.
High lake levels, sandy beaches and hot weather will attract thousands to Nebraska's largest reservoir..
Water inflows into Lake McConaughy are stronger than they have been in more than a decade.
The tide is high at Lake McConaughy...
Nate Nielsen, CNPPID Kingsley Dam Foreman, says, "It was a real surprise that we gained this much."
And its helping the lake recover from the historically water levels in the past few years.
Nielsen says, "We've come up another three feet. We're twelve feet from full which means we are about 80 percent capacity."
Numbers not heard of in nearly a decade.
Nielsen says, "The late winter and early spring inflows were less than normal and things were not progressing real well. But last weekend we ended up with five and a quarter inches here at the dam."
Boat ramps that haven't been wetted by waves since 2002 will be underwater water this summer.
Nielsen says, "We used to have a quarter of a mile long beach and now it's a couple of hundred yards wide."
Which means all nine boat ramps will be available versus last year's two.
Nielsen says, "We're seeing a lot of changes at Lake McConaughy"
There is a rare combination of factors that is creating the gush water into the lake:
One is reservoirs on the Platte River in Wyoming are all nearing capacity.
The other is storage at Glendo Reservoir, in Wyoming has moved into its flood pool and rising.
Nielsen says, "So all of that water is coming down into Lake McConaughy."
Water levels are expected to continue into Big Mac for at least the next several weeks....
Nielsen says, "Wyoming has got a lot of water waiting to come down to us."
As upstream reservoirs pass excess water down the Platte River.
Nielsen says, "We're not releasing anything from Lake McConaughy right now. The South Platte is actually running 6,000 cubic feet per second through Ogallala and we have no control over that. We're trying to hold all of the water we can in Lake McConaughy to try to alleviate the downstream flooding."
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