Jul 15, 2008 - 04:06:03 CDT
Snow that fell months ago hundreds of miles west and thousands of feet high is showing up at Kelly Sorge's front door.Sorge owns Indian Hills Resort on the North Shore of Lake Sakakawea. She counts exactly five years since she's seen the level of water that's just now creeping up the resort's main ramp.
Most of that fresh cold water - a 16-foot rise since ice out this spring - is pouring in from the Yellowstone River, the primary tributary to the Missouri River and Garrison Dam.
The Yellowstone drains all the Rocky Mountain ranges east of Yellowstone National Park and in good years contributes 40 percent of all the water going into Lake Sakakawea.
Because of heavy mountain snow and a wet, cool spring, this is a good year for the Yellowstone River, better than any in the last seven.
The river had been running full tilt for nearly two months and is only now throttling back from a high of 58,000 cubic feet per second, to Monday's 33,500 cfs recorded at Sidney, Mont, just a few miles upstream from the confluence.
That's more than twice the volume leaving the hydro turbines at Garrison Dam near Riverdale. The more-in-than-out situation means good things for the lake and people who recreate on it.
It'll keep coming, too.
River gauges deep into Yellowstone River country show it's still flowing at about 19,000 cfs back in Billings, Mont., still another seven to 10 river days from Sidney, said Larry Cieslak, spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Add that to the 7,000 cfs coming in through Fort Peck and a moderate rise - perhaps another 3 feet or more total - should continue for about two more weeks, he said.
Sorge said the last time the main ramp at Indian Hills was usable was Labor Day 2003.
Except for the heavy growth of weeds that grew up in the years of receding water, it would be usable now, she said. "It's considered marginal," she said.
Instead, boaters depend on a temporary ramp poured this spring just a short distance from the campground.
But to see water creeping back up ramps barren for so long is "light at the end of the tunnel. It's good to see something out there," Sorge said.
The vegetation choking the Indian Hills ramp bay and everywhere around the lake is a nuisance for boat props and kids who hate the creepy feeling on their arms and legs when swimming.
But fish love it.
Those flooded weeds provide habitat for a potpourri of minnow-size fish and they are an important forage base going up the fish food chain, said Game and Fish Department's fisheries chief Greg Power.
Even better, the 1,823.5 feet elevation in Lake Sakakawea Monday creeping up Sorge's ramp is very near the 1,825 feet that's critical to restoring the lake's deepest, coldest water.
Without cold oxygenated water, plankton and smelt have nearly disappeared from the lake - federal biologists said it was 90 percent gone two years ago - and most game fish species, especially walleye, have been marginalized as a result.
Power said it's good to see the lake level come up and he counts 32 ramps open on the department's Web site gf.nd.gov, up eight in just the last week.
In rising water, the ramps will recover faster than the fish.
"It doesn"t make better fishing tomorrow, but it does in years to come," he said. "The biggest short term benefit is access. The biology is more long term. It takes three years for a walleye to get to 14 inches."
This is the third consecutive year that Lake Sakakawea was not stocked with walleye, even though the department released 8 million of the wiggly critters into North Dakota lakes last month.
That could change if the big lake stays up.
"We could get back into stocking it, hopefully next year," Power said.
Cieslak said the corps will maintain low releases from Garrison Dam through mid-September and then drop even further going into the fall.
He projects Lake Sakakawea will start out next spring at 1,820 feet elevation - maybe a little higher.
Compared to this spring's 1,807 feet, that's a good running start.
(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511, or lauren@westriv.com.)
Gov of Missouri wrote on Jul 15, 2008 12:52 PM:
ND Native wrote on Jul 15, 2008 11:14 AM:
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