Note – There will be no drawdown forecast from TSW this week.
As a result of extreme rainfall over the last 4 months water levels remain exceptionally high throughout the Trent River watershed. Most dams in the reservoirs, except for those on the Lower Gull River, are already adjusted to their normal winter set levels in terms of logs in place. However the water levels are still declining as a result of recent rainfall events, and flows are higher than normal. For example, the current flow on the Gull River is 40 CMS (cubic meters per second) vs a normal flow for the date of 18 CMS. On the Burnt River the flow is 26 CMS vs a normal of 10 CMS.
On the main stream of the Gull river the TSW is actively managing flows from Twelve Mile Lake downstream to Balsam lake to pass higher than normal flows. In some cases, extra logs are out of the dams and winter set conditions at those dams will be delayed as water is passed downstream.
The extreme rainfall totals since June have not just impacted the reservoirs but also applied to the whole of the Trent River Basin. As a result the TSW water management team has had a very active summer and fall managing water levels and flows throughout the whole system within normal ranges.
As readers may be aware from news reports the Canal system has recently been closed to navigation downstream from Young’s Point to Trenton due to high water flows. TSW has focused on passing extra flow downstream to Lake Ontario to relieve high levels in the system. This has been an exceptional situation to close the canal in the final weeks of the season. The canal is scheduled to reopen tomorrow for the final 4 days of the season to allow boats to clear the system.
Levels throughout the reservoirs can be expected to continue declining towards normal winter levels with the timing dependent on rainfall amounts. We expect that TSW will post a final drawdown forecast by early next week.