Corps of Engineers to increase Lake Ashtabula water releases

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, plans to increase water releases from Baldhill Dam, near Valley City, this week to save storage capacity within Lake Ashtabula.  

The storage space allows Corps officials to have the ability to better regulate future rain events. The current plan is to increase water releases from 3,100 cubic feet per second, or cfs, up to 3,500 cfs over the next few days. With the increased outflow, Lake Ashtabula is forecast to reach an elevation of 1,269.0 feet early next week.

The local runoff from storm events during the past month generated very high flows coming into Lake Ashtabula with peak flows above 6,500 cfs. These inflows have started to taper off and local runoff downstream of the dam is also slowly receding and to a point where we can safely release more water to gain critical storage capacity while minimizing flood threats to downstream communities, agricultural operations and rural roads.

For the most up-to-date information, please visit our Baldhill Dam water management webpage at: https://www.mvp-wc.usace.army.mil/reports/Baldhill_Dam.Report.shtml. The forecast is updated daily during this runoff event.

Current and historic lake levels and releases can be accessed at www.mvp-wc.usace.army.mil or https://water.usace.army.mil. All Corps of Engineers reservoirs are operated in accordance with detailed water control manuals to ensure the system performs as designed.

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