Wednesday: 22 August 2007
July 27: Still some water in this portion - just around the bend downstream is where I shot a photo at the time showing where the stream bed completely dry for the remainder of its length.
August 20:
While this has been on my mind for some time (obviously!), yesterday with its 104 degF temperatures, today’s predicted 104 deg, the promise of no rain through next Tue (maybe a small chance on Friday), and a conversation with a neighbor brought it into sharper relief.
The neighbor lives about a mile downstream from us on Goulding Creek, and like us, he’s very fond of the creek. His stretch has now completely dried up, although there are still standing pools on our stretch, with very slight flows. We talked several times yesterday about the dammed private lake upstream of us, which had at least a month ago shut off its outflow to Goulding Creek to prevent losing its water. This seems so wrong on several levels that it’s hard to believe that in the end it doesn’t matter.
Now the dammed lake has no effect on our side tributary above that runs into Goulding Creek, but it certainly has an effect on Goulding Creek itself. The lake is both fed by and feeds that creek.
Glenn talked to the lake’s neighborhood association president yesterday to determine what had been, could, and should be done, and had a pleasant and constructive conversation. The upshot is that the president has been on the phone for several days to Dept Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife, and other various agencies and experts in the matter of the situation. The state of streams all over our part of the southeast is that they are all at historically record lows. The general rule of thumb is that dammed lakes must allow outflow equal to inflow, and as Glenn, our neighbor, and the president independently confirmed, Goulding Creek’s inflow to the lake is now zero.
The logical lack of clever alternatives follows from previous musings I’d already made on the subject of water tables. The hydrology specialist the association president had talked to had simply said that it would do no good to release water to the creek. It would simply disappear into the bed and sink to the water table, now below the creek bed, without accomplishing anything. With or without the lake the situation would be the same.
Actually the lake’s presence probably does accomplish *something*. Outflow does occur, after all. It occurs downward through the lake bed and in the same general direction into the water table downstream. So in the end we may be able to thumb our noses in the general direction of the lake and say, “we’ll get your water anyway.”
August 20:
While this has been on my mind for some time (obviously!), yesterday with its 104 degF temperatures, today’s predicted 104 deg, the promise of no rain through next Tue (maybe a small chance on Friday), and a conversation with a neighbor brought it into sharper relief.
The neighbor lives about a mile downstream from us on Goulding Creek, and like us, he’s very fond of the creek. His stretch has now completely dried up, although there are still standing pools on our stretch, with very slight flows. We talked several times yesterday about the dammed private lake upstream of us, which had at least a month ago shut off its outflow to Goulding Creek to prevent losing its water. This seems so wrong on several levels that it’s hard to believe that in the end it doesn’t matter.
Now the dammed lake has no effect on our side tributary above that runs into Goulding Creek, but it certainly has an effect on Goulding Creek itself. The lake is both fed by and feeds that creek.
Glenn talked to the lake’s neighborhood association president yesterday to determine what had been, could, and should be done, and had a pleasant and constructive conversation. The upshot is that the president has been on the phone for several days to Dept Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife, and other various agencies and experts in the matter of the situation. The state of streams all over our part of the southeast is that they are all at historically record lows. The general rule of thumb is that dammed lakes must allow outflow equal to inflow, and as Glenn, our neighbor, and the president independently confirmed, Goulding Creek’s inflow to the lake is now zero.
The logical lack of clever alternatives follows from previous musings I’d already made on the subject of water tables. The hydrology specialist the association president had talked to had simply said that it would do no good to release water to the creek. It would simply disappear into the bed and sink to the water table, now below the creek bed, without accomplishing anything. With or without the lake the situation would be the same.
Actually the lake’s presence probably does accomplish *something*. Outflow does occur, after all. It occurs downward through the lake bed and in the same general direction into the water table downstream. So in the end we may be able to thumb our noses in the general direction of the lake and say, “we’ll get your water anyway.”
