Red Willow Reservoir

[1tohuntandfish]

rob, I was thinking the same thing. Let that ice freeze after the draw down. road trip.

[MA Machine]

For sure! I just don't want a 3 foot gap of air under the ice.

[Scott Eveland]

Originally Posted by Curtisk

Red Willow Creek runs good water into the lake as was mentioned about Medicine Creek about Medicine Creek. At least the lake has that going for it. Considering the weather patterns SW Nebraska has experienced, once repairs are done, I would be surprised if a full recharge would take that long.

Medicine Creek does not run into Red Willow (Hugh Butler) Reservoir. Medicine Creek runs into Medicine Creek (Harry Strunk) Reservoir.

You are right, Med Creek recharges fast, and Med. Creek Res. has no problem refilling nearly every winter. Unfortunately, that won't help refil Red Willow.

Three out of four of the SW reservoirs have experienced a very slow recovery, despite the wetter weather in SW NE.

Reclamation: Great Plains Region

[Curtisk]

???

[Scott Eveland]

Originally Posted by Curtisk

???

Is there something I can clarify for you from my post?

I was trying to point out that Medicine Creek water does NOT flow into Red Willow and speak a little more to the water situation on the SW reservoirs. Maybe I misread your earlier post--I thought you were saying that Medicine Creek flowed into Red Willow.

Scott

[Curtisk]

I was simply pointing out Red Willow Creek flows twelve months out of the year into Hugh Butler as does Medicine Creek into Harry Strunk. When I lived in SW NE I observed that most years between '01'-'05' the water in the Republican at the Max bridge would dry up by June and would not return until Oct-Dec. Not sure I could document when the Frenchman would stop flowing into Enders but I can say through those years I saw it dry more than wet. Through those same years, Red Willow, and Med. Ck. flowed fine.

I realize this is not the case today with all four SW NE reservoirs but as a rule, Swanson and Enders do not have the same "luxury" of 12 months of inflow on an annual basis.

With all this said. Drain any of those reservoirs for repairs and I would rank recharge efforts in the following: Harry Strunk - no problem, Hugh Butler - slower but it'll get there, Swanson and Enders - may want to purchase ground water and pump it full rather than wait on tributary flows.

[Scott Eveland]

Sorry, I misunderstood your original post "Red Willow Creek runs good water into the lake as was mentioned about Medicine Creek about Medicine Creek." I thought you meant that MC water flowed into RW.

Originally Posted by Curtisk

With all this said. Drain any of those reservoirs for repairs and I would rank recharge efforts in the following: Harry Strunk - no problem, Hugh Butler - slower but it'll get there, Swanson and Enders - may want to purchase ground water and pump it full rather than wait on tributary flows.

That sums it up quite well.

Med Creek (Strunk) recharges nearly every winter. Red Willow was making good gains in the past three years, but wasn't full yet. Enders has made tiny gains and Swanson very little improvement.

**To clarify, I don't think the pumping of groundwater into those lakes is at all a realistic or good idea, I assumed the absurdity of it made a point about the dire circumstances those two lakes are in.

[whitetips]

Originally Posted by Curtisk

. . . Swanson and Enders - may want to purchase ground water and pump it full rather than wait on tributary flows.

OK, please do not take this personally, but the somewhat "anal", pointy-headed fisheries biologist wants to use your comment to make a point.

"Purchase groundwater and pump it full"?????? Where does the groundwater come from? Could it be that the tributary flows in those drainages, for that matter in many Nebraska drainages, is declining or already extremely low because of ground water pumping? Ground water, surface water, it is all the same water! It is all part of the water cycle. Pumping water out of the ground because the stream flow is not what it used to be is "robbing Peter to pay Paul". For some reason folks have this misconception that there is this big reservoir of groundwater underneath the state and that it is not connected or related to surface water in our lakes, reservoirs, streams and rivers. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Aren't rivers and streams supposed to have water in them?

Daryl Bauer
Fisheries Outreach Program Manager
Nebraska Game & Parks Commission
daryl.bauer@nebraska.gov
Barbs and Backlashes

[Curtisk]

Daryl,

Funny how you were the very person I expected a response from with that comment. You can breathe a sigh of relief that I would not be one to promote using ground water to replentish a reservoir.

Yes I'm pointing out absuridty in as few words as possible because I did not want to direct the conversation to a full blown surface/ground, NRD vs. DNR, KS vs.NE Republican River Basin lawsuit, water issues exchange and I'm not taking it there.

[Chen rossii]

Red Willow is down almost 15 foot from where it was at the end of October and they are still letting water out.

[AnglerX]

Red Willow is now 7 feet lower than it was at it's lowest level in 2003...

Nearly 24 feet below conservation pool.

[h20fowl_ne]

Sounds like the water is going to continue to be released until it will not flow out of the Reservoir on its' own. Reports are they found 3 major leaks/holes that will need to be fixed.

[Chen rossii]

Looks like Red Willow is now over 18 foot lower than it was at the high in October. Any word how the repair is going?

[Chen rossii]

I will have a blog post coming soon that will link to a page that will provide updates.

Keep one thing in mind about this--you are talking about the Federal government. Everybody better prepare to have their patience tested. At this point they do not even know what kind of a problem they are dealing with.

Daryl Bauer
Fisheries Outreach Program Manager
Nebraska Game & Parks Commission
daryl.bauer@nebraska.gov
Barbs and Backlashes

P.S. Feel free to share this message with others if you wish.