If you're not building the next Noah's Ark, you might be in trouble once the weather warms up and the snow melts. That was the sentiment of one audience member at a public meeting with the Bureau of Reclamation and the state engineer's office last Thursday. His worries, though not shared by local officials, at least
raised important questions about the consequences of this winter's historically high snowfall.
He pointed to the water levels in Jackson Lake and the Bureau of Reclamation's apparent inaction in the face of imminent flooding. According to his estimations,
the lake could fill up in as few as 10 days of heavy runoff. If enough water hasn't already been released from the dam by peak runoff, Teton County will end up under water, he argued. His proposed solution was to release as much water from Jackson Lake as possible now in anticipation of the devastating snowmelt.
But it's not that simple, says Bureau of Reclamation water manager Corey Loveland. His job is a balancing act. Releasing all the water now would deprive essential irrigation systems in Idaho down the road (err, river). They must release enough water, Loveland said, to make room for future snowmelt without running the dam dry. And that's precisely what they're doing. "We're balancing filling the reservoir with not flooding people downstream," he said.
