April 2016 Update:


Below are the pumping, water releases and evaporation totals for April 2016.


Evaporation for April = 6.28 inches or about 14,650 acre-feet.


Rainfall Recorded for April at the SRA Headquarters = 9.84 inches.


1/ Water Released Downstream for Communities by the SRA for April = 184.1 acre-feet or about 0.079 inches off the lake.


Water Pumped by Dallas for April = 5,992.9 acre-feet or about 1,952,794,855 gallons. This equals about 2.57 inches of water off the surface of the lake by pumping.


Water Released by the SRA through the Flood Gates for April = 82,989.4 acre-feet or about 27,042,212,175.16 gallons. This is the equivalent of taking 2.96 feet or 35.5 inches off the surface of Lake Fork when it is full and dumping it downstream.


So, the total water removed from the lake for April was about 44.4 inches.



2016 Totals through April:


Evaporation for 2016 = 17.74 inches or about 41,393 acre-feet.


Rainfall Recorded by the SRA for 2016 at the SRA Headquarters = 21.49 inches


1/ Water Released Downstream for Communities by the SRA for 2016 = 654.5 acre-feet or about 213,269,741 gallons. This has totaled about 0.28 inches off the lake so far through 2016.


Water Pumped by Dallas for 2016 = 21,778.8 acre-feet or about 7,096,652,470 gallons. This equals about 9.3 inches of water taken off the lake so far for 2016.


Water Released Downstream by the SRA through the Flood Gates when the Lake was Overfull in 2016 = 212,585.6 acre-feet or about 69,271,315,379.8 gallons. This is the equivalent of 7.6 feet of water taken off the lake so far in 2016.


So, the total amount of water removed from the lake so far in 2016 is about 276,412 acre-feet or about 9.87 feet. About 77% of that water left the lake through the flood gates when the lake was overfull to prevent damage to the dam.


One other observation is so far Dallas Water Utilities has pumped 21,778.8 acre-feet from Lake Fork this year. Dallas has rights to 131,000 acre-feet, so they have taken "only" 16.6% of the water they are entitled to take and we are 1/3 of the way through the year. So far this year Dallas has averaged 58.5 million gallons per day of pumping.


1/ - To clarify the water released to communities downstream by the SRA when you are below the dam looking at the gates you will notice 2 pipes releasing water towards the lower right side of the gates. This is how the SRA releases water downstream to communities. These pipes flow most of the time, but as you can see from the numbers above this is a very small amount of water released compared to evaporation, Dallas pumping or water releases through the gates.



Steve Chick