OMAHA, NE - Runoff from last week's precipitation in Colorado is causing elevated pool levels at the Tri-Lakes dams that are owned and maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District.
Bear Creek, Chatfield, and Cherry Creek Dams make up the Tri-Lakes Projects and are not experiencing any dam safety issues from the recent heavy precipitation which fell in the Central Rocky Mountains region.
As part of a system operations plan to evacuate flood storage, releases from the Tri-Lakes dams are as follows:
- Bear Creek - 500 cubic feet per second (cfs)
- Cherry Creek - 250 cfs
- Chatfield - increasing from 1500 cfs to 1900 cfs today
These releases are coordinated with the State of Colorado Division of Water Resources and have been increased as downstream river stages have fallen. Releases were reduced last week and over the weekend during the threat of heavy rain to create channel capacity for local runoff downstream of the dams.
As of noon today, Bear Creek's pool elevation was 5597.7 feet and rising. Hourly inflows are 580 cfs and declining as indicated through dropping stages at upstream gages. As mentioned above, releases are at 500 cfs. The flood control pool is 29.5 percent occupied. Bear Creek Dam is expected to continue to slowly rise due to mountain snowmelt runoff over the next week.
At Chatfield Dam, the pool elevation is 5440.1 feet and rising with the hourly inflow rate at 1900 cfs. This rate is holding steady however, upstream gages are dropping. Releases were at 1500 cfs at noon but were increased to 1900 cfs at 1 p.m. (Mountain Daylight Time). The pool elevations should peak in the next couple days near its current pool elevation filling 7 percent of the flood control pool.
Cherry Creek Dam reached its peak pool elevation yesterday at 5553.6 ft. The current pool elevation is 5553.5 feet and dropping with 3.9 percent of flood control pool occupied. The hourly inflows are at 80 cfs and releases are at 250 cfs.
Release no. 150515-001