1 00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:02,237 - So folks, my name is Kevin Grode. 2 00:00:02,237 --> 00:00:04,850 I'm the Reservoir Regulation team lead 3 00:00:04,850 --> 00:00:06,470 of the Missouri Reservoir Management Office 4 00:00:06,470 --> 00:00:08,010 for the Corps of Engineers. 5 00:00:08,010 --> 00:00:09,810 There are a lot of you standing, 6 00:00:09,810 --> 00:00:11,860 and if you wanna stand that's fine, 7 00:00:11,860 --> 00:00:14,130 but there are seats available. 8 00:00:14,130 --> 00:00:15,610 So if you have a seat next to you 9 00:00:15,610 --> 00:00:17,080 that's available for someone to sit in, 10 00:00:17,080 --> 00:00:18,980 could you please just raise your hand? 11 00:00:20,750 --> 00:00:23,020 So grab a seat if you wish. 12 00:00:23,020 --> 00:00:24,410 If you wanna stand, that's fine. 13 00:00:24,410 --> 00:00:27,020 Just giving fair warning, we were in Bismarck 14 00:00:27,020 --> 00:00:29,550 last night and we were there for two and a half hours. 15 00:00:29,550 --> 00:00:32,680 So I can't stand for two and a half hours, 16 00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:34,403 but if you can, great. 17 00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:41,920 We recognize that many of you were severely 18 00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:44,453 impacted by this flooding event. 19 00:00:45,670 --> 00:00:48,010 We thank you for coming to this. 20 00:00:48,010 --> 00:00:51,470 We will be here after this presentation 21 00:00:51,470 --> 00:00:55,850 to let every single one of you have a chance 22 00:00:55,850 --> 00:00:58,263 to express what you came here to say. 23 00:01:00,870 --> 00:01:04,960 But I know you don't wanna sit through a long presentation. 24 00:01:04,960 --> 00:01:07,083 That's not why you came to this meeting. 25 00:01:08,170 --> 00:01:10,460 But we were in Bismarck last night. 26 00:01:10,460 --> 00:01:13,770 We were in Fort Peck then earlier in the day. 27 00:01:13,770 --> 00:01:15,732 We give this presentation for those of you 28 00:01:15,732 --> 00:01:20,732 who haven't been to some of our semi-annual presentations 29 00:01:21,570 --> 00:01:25,873 because it really does explain what the Missouri River 30 00:01:25,873 --> 00:01:28,310 main stem system is and how it works, 31 00:01:28,310 --> 00:01:31,563 and how we go through our decision-making process. 32 00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:36,850 And so if you could just bear with myself and Mike 33 00:01:36,850 --> 00:01:40,500 as we give this presentation, it just might give 34 00:01:40,500 --> 00:01:42,750 a little bit more information when we get into the 35 00:01:42,750 --> 00:01:44,627 question and answer period because we found 36 00:01:44,627 --> 00:01:47,470 last night at Bismarck that we were constantly 37 00:01:47,470 --> 00:01:50,640 going back to slides to give a little bit more 38 00:01:50,640 --> 00:01:54,260 context to what our answers were in regards 39 00:01:54,260 --> 00:01:56,020 to some of the questions that were asked. 40 00:01:56,020 --> 00:01:58,593 So I just ask for your patience through this. 41 00:02:02,910 --> 00:02:07,910 So the Missouri River Mainstem System is comprised 42 00:02:08,110 --> 00:02:11,173 of six reservoirs in the Missouri River Mainstem. 43 00:02:12,409 --> 00:02:14,740 And sometimes we do call it the system 44 00:02:14,740 --> 00:02:18,380 because it's really operated as a system of reservoirs 45 00:02:18,380 --> 00:02:20,833 rather than six individual projects. 46 00:02:22,150 --> 00:02:26,160 So we have Fort Peck, Garrison, Oahe, 47 00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:29,573 Big Bend, Fort Randall, and Gavins Point. 48 00:02:30,640 --> 00:02:35,640 And all of them are on the Missouri River, 2,321 miles, 49 00:02:36,190 --> 00:02:39,390 which makes it the longest river in the United States, 50 00:02:39,390 --> 00:02:41,970 longer than the Mississippi River for those 51 00:02:41,970 --> 00:02:44,370 of you who know people on the Mississippi River. 52 00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:50,143 And this is the mission of our office. 53 00:02:51,490 --> 00:02:56,220 We are to regulate those six projects, the system, 54 00:02:56,220 --> 00:02:59,133 for eight, congressionally authorized purposes. 55 00:03:00,660 --> 00:03:05,400 Flood control, navigation, hydropower, 56 00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:08,180 water supply, fish and wildlife, 57 00:03:08,180 --> 00:03:11,440 which includes the threat in endangered species, 58 00:03:11,440 --> 00:03:15,863 irrigation, water quality control, and recreation. 59 00:03:19,310 --> 00:03:22,730 This series of graphs is to represent 60 00:03:22,730 --> 00:03:26,220 the amount of drainage area that is controlled 61 00:03:26,220 --> 00:03:28,903 by each one of the Mainstem projects. 62 00:03:30,600 --> 00:03:32,770 So this area in purple is what drains 63 00:03:32,770 --> 00:03:36,183 into Fort Peck, about 57,000 square miles. 64 00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:40,110 Between Fort Peck and Garrison, 65 00:03:40,110 --> 00:03:43,773 we have another 123,000 square miles. 66 00:03:46,140 --> 00:03:50,023 Between Garrison and Oahe, another 60,000 square miles. 67 00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:54,520 Then we have Big Bend and Fort Randall, 68 00:03:54,520 --> 00:03:56,143 and then finally, Gavins Point. 69 00:03:57,350 --> 00:04:00,270 All total, the Mainstem system controls 70 00:04:00,270 --> 00:04:05,270 about 280,000 square miles of the 530,000 square miles 71 00:04:07,160 --> 00:04:09,890 in the overall Missouri River basin. 72 00:04:09,890 --> 00:04:14,060 These little gray triangles are also tributary projects. 73 00:04:14,060 --> 00:04:15,697 Some owned by the Corps of Engineers. 74 00:04:15,697 --> 00:04:18,273 Some owned by the Bureau of Reclamation. 75 00:04:19,810 --> 00:04:21,730 And then outside of that purple area, 76 00:04:21,730 --> 00:04:25,600 these blue areas are tributary projects 77 00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:28,430 which are operated by the Omaha District 78 00:04:28,430 --> 00:04:30,530 Corps of Engineers projects. 79 00:04:30,530 --> 00:04:32,350 And then the Kansas City District, 80 00:04:32,350 --> 00:04:34,250 we have these tributary projects here. 81 00:04:35,160 --> 00:04:40,160 The areas you see here are all unregulated areas, 82 00:04:40,760 --> 00:04:43,610 meaning that there's no dams in those areas 83 00:04:43,610 --> 00:04:45,670 to capture any of the runoff. 84 00:04:45,670 --> 00:04:48,500 All the water that comes into those rivers, 85 00:04:48,500 --> 00:04:51,850 just as Kevin mentioned during his presentation, 86 00:04:51,850 --> 00:04:53,903 find their way to the Missouri River. 87 00:04:57,900 --> 00:05:02,900 This graphic depicts the size of the Mainstem projects. 88 00:05:03,260 --> 00:05:06,620 Now, I talked about Fort Peck, Garrison, and Oahe. 89 00:05:06,620 --> 00:05:08,520 They're the upper three, and sometimes they're 90 00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:11,900 called the big three because they contain 91 00:05:11,900 --> 00:05:16,900 the vast majority of the storage of the system. 92 00:05:17,160 --> 00:05:20,010 When you look at Big Bend and Gavins Point, 93 00:05:20,010 --> 00:05:23,660 very small projects, in fact, if you look through this 94 00:05:23,660 --> 00:05:27,680 color right here, this white or maybe it's a gray, 95 00:05:27,680 --> 00:05:30,573 and this red, that's the flood control storage. 96 00:05:32,290 --> 00:05:34,420 You can see that there's four projects 97 00:05:34,420 --> 00:05:36,780 that have flood control storage. 98 00:05:36,780 --> 00:05:39,300 When it comes to Big Bend and Gavins Point, 99 00:05:39,300 --> 00:05:42,793 very, very small amounts of flood control storage. 100 00:05:44,310 --> 00:05:46,550 These projects are re-regulation projects. 101 00:05:46,550 --> 00:05:48,790 What comes in, pretty much goes out. 102 00:05:48,790 --> 00:05:50,970 They do a lot when it comes to recreation, 103 00:05:50,970 --> 00:05:54,150 to hydropower generation, to water supply. 104 00:05:54,150 --> 00:05:55,726 But when it comes to flood control, 105 00:05:55,726 --> 00:05:57,690 they're not much of a player. 106 00:05:57,690 --> 00:06:00,863 It's really these four that make a difference. 107 00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:04,320 When we get into a drought, 108 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:07,740 it's these three that make the difference. 109 00:06:07,740 --> 00:06:12,240 We draw these reservoirs down into the carryover 110 00:06:12,240 --> 00:06:17,240 multiple use zone to get us through long, extended droughts. 111 00:06:17,380 --> 00:06:19,460 When it comes to droughts, these three down here, 112 00:06:19,460 --> 00:06:20,913 they're really not impacted. 113 00:06:24,470 --> 00:06:26,713 So I use the word system. 114 00:06:28,060 --> 00:06:31,830 So what I mean by that is we make some of our decisions 115 00:06:31,830 --> 00:06:35,180 based on how much water is in all six projects. 116 00:06:35,180 --> 00:06:38,840 So this graphic is if you were take all six 117 00:06:38,840 --> 00:06:41,130 of them and put them together into one project, 118 00:06:41,130 --> 00:06:43,320 this is what it would look like. 119 00:06:43,320 --> 00:06:44,840 So we have four zones. 120 00:06:44,840 --> 00:06:46,390 We have the permanent pool zone, 121 00:06:46,390 --> 00:06:49,060 which is the minimum amount of water we need 122 00:06:49,060 --> 00:06:51,050 in each one of the reservoirs to operate, 123 00:06:51,050 --> 00:06:52,603 for us, things like hydropower. 124 00:06:54,040 --> 00:06:57,723 You have this carryover multiple use zone the largest zone. 125 00:06:58,784 --> 00:07:02,140 And this zone is to get us through long, extended droughts. 126 00:07:02,140 --> 00:07:05,640 The last one was from 2000 to 2007. 127 00:07:05,640 --> 00:07:08,823 And at that point, we reached our historic minimum. 128 00:07:11,450 --> 00:07:13,630 This zone up here, I'm gonna skip the zone 129 00:07:13,630 --> 00:07:14,920 and put it here first. 130 00:07:14,920 --> 00:07:17,260 This zone, this top zone 131 00:07:17,260 --> 00:07:19,560 is the exclusive flood control zone. 132 00:07:19,560 --> 00:07:21,059 And just as the name implies, 133 00:07:21,059 --> 00:07:25,020 when we're in that zone, we are regulating 134 00:07:25,020 --> 00:07:27,493 exclusively for flood control. 135 00:07:29,390 --> 00:07:31,850 This annual flood control and multiple use zone, 136 00:07:31,850 --> 00:07:36,163 that's where we wanna be 365 days out of the year. 137 00:07:37,160 --> 00:07:39,080 Ideally, we start the runoff season, 138 00:07:39,080 --> 00:07:41,480 which is on or about March 1st, right here, 139 00:07:41,480 --> 00:07:42,927 at the base of the annual flood control 140 00:07:42,927 --> 00:07:44,060 and multiple use zone. 141 00:07:45,300 --> 00:07:49,500 As we see the snow melt come off and the rainfall happening, 142 00:07:49,500 --> 00:07:52,740 in March and April we rise into this zone. 143 00:07:52,740 --> 00:07:56,180 And then we continue rising into it in May, June, and July 144 00:07:56,180 --> 00:07:59,540 when we see the mountain snowpack and rainfall occurring. 145 00:07:59,540 --> 00:08:02,440 And then during the drier months, August, September, 146 00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:05,560 October, November, December, January, we meter 147 00:08:05,560 --> 00:08:09,260 that water out between all those authorized purposes. 148 00:08:09,260 --> 00:08:12,540 This is where we can meet, best meet, 149 00:08:12,540 --> 00:08:15,330 all eight authorized purposes. 150 00:08:15,330 --> 00:08:17,707 This is where we're at right now, 151 00:08:17,707 --> 00:08:20,200 we have about 50% of the total flood control 152 00:08:20,200 --> 00:08:21,653 storage available for us. 153 00:08:24,790 --> 00:08:27,340 So we take those same four zones, 154 00:08:27,340 --> 00:08:30,910 they're applied to all of the projects. 155 00:08:30,910 --> 00:08:34,250 And here we can see Fort Peck and Garrison. 156 00:08:34,250 --> 00:08:36,580 They have some water stored in their 157 00:08:36,580 --> 00:08:39,010 annual flood control multiple use zone. 158 00:08:39,010 --> 00:08:41,120 But we've saved a lot of that storage 159 00:08:41,120 --> 00:08:43,630 because when it comes to mountain snow melt, 160 00:08:43,630 --> 00:08:45,860 these are the two projects that receive 161 00:08:45,860 --> 00:08:47,010 that mountain snowpack. 162 00:08:48,640 --> 00:08:51,200 Oahe and Fort Randall, they're further into 163 00:08:51,200 --> 00:08:53,200 that annual flood control multiple use zone. 164 00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:57,563 In fact, Fort Randall is in the exclusive flood control. 165 00:08:58,410 --> 00:09:01,858 And these rose very quickly over the last couple weeks 166 00:09:01,858 --> 00:09:06,858 because all that snow melted in mid-March. 167 00:09:14,140 --> 00:09:16,570 So, I'm gonna talk about the runoff components. 168 00:09:16,570 --> 00:09:17,930 What makes the runoff? 169 00:09:17,930 --> 00:09:19,520 And there's really three major components. 170 00:09:19,520 --> 00:09:23,730 So we have plains snowpack, and that usually melts off 171 00:09:23,730 --> 00:09:25,793 in February, March and April. 172 00:09:26,750 --> 00:09:28,080 And during March and April, 173 00:09:28,080 --> 00:09:29,850 the two months of March and April, 174 00:09:29,850 --> 00:09:31,567 when we're seeing the plain snow melting off 175 00:09:31,567 --> 00:09:32,730 and the rainfall occurring, 176 00:09:32,730 --> 00:09:34,755 we'll normally get about 25% 177 00:09:34,755 --> 00:09:36,983 of the annual runoff into the system. 178 00:09:38,070 --> 00:09:41,660 The mountain snowpack melts off in May, June and July. 179 00:09:41,660 --> 00:09:42,990 And, of course, we get precipitation 180 00:09:42,990 --> 00:09:44,660 during those three months. 181 00:09:44,660 --> 00:09:47,460 During those three months we normally get about 50% 182 00:09:47,460 --> 00:09:49,670 of the runoff into the basin. 183 00:09:49,670 --> 00:09:51,570 So in this five month period, 184 00:09:51,570 --> 00:09:54,680 March, April, May, June and July, 185 00:09:54,680 --> 00:09:58,290 we normally see about 75% of the total runoff. 186 00:09:58,290 --> 00:10:02,463 During the other 7 months is where we see the other 25%. 187 00:10:03,670 --> 00:10:07,050 We update a forecast at least every month, 188 00:10:07,050 --> 00:10:10,133 more often if conditions change significantly. 189 00:10:11,040 --> 00:10:15,593 Our April one forecast is 38.2 million acre feet, 190 00:10:16,450 --> 00:10:19,170 just to give you a point of reference, 191 00:10:19,170 --> 00:10:22,233 the runoff in 2018 was 42. 192 00:10:24,230 --> 00:10:26,080 This is 150% of average. 193 00:10:26,080 --> 00:10:28,350 Our normal upper basin runoff, 194 00:10:28,350 --> 00:10:31,923 and when I say upper basin, it's above Sioux City, Iowa. 195 00:10:32,840 --> 00:10:35,023 It's about 25.3 million acre feet. 196 00:10:36,550 --> 00:10:40,200 So last year, 2018 was the third highest 197 00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:43,163 upper basin runoff in 120 years. 198 00:10:44,110 --> 00:10:47,760 If this 38.2 is actually realized it will be 199 00:10:47,760 --> 00:10:51,283 the sixth highest in 121 years. 200 00:10:53,790 --> 00:10:55,760 So I'm gonna step through each one of those 201 00:10:55,760 --> 00:10:57,273 runoff components, real quick. 202 00:10:58,730 --> 00:11:02,550 So, this is what we thought was the maximum amount. 203 00:11:02,550 --> 00:11:04,550 When we looked at the basin, as a whole, 204 00:11:07,096 --> 00:11:08,970 it was our estimation. 205 00:11:08,970 --> 00:11:11,350 That on March 10th, that was the maximum amount 206 00:11:11,350 --> 00:11:13,250 of snowpack we had in the upper basin. 207 00:11:14,430 --> 00:11:15,400 I circled this point here. 208 00:11:15,400 --> 00:11:16,780 If you look at the graph here, 209 00:11:16,780 --> 00:11:18,250 Kevin even mentioned it during that, 210 00:11:18,250 --> 00:11:20,480 when we talk about inches of water equivalent, 211 00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:23,148 it's not snow depth we're talking about, 212 00:11:23,148 --> 00:11:26,460 it's the amount of liquid content in the snow. 213 00:11:26,460 --> 00:11:28,810 So just like you did in science class, 214 00:11:28,810 --> 00:11:30,060 when you're in fourth or fifth grade, 215 00:11:30,060 --> 00:11:31,120 you take a bucket of snow, 216 00:11:31,120 --> 00:11:33,700 you put it into your garage and you let it melt. 217 00:11:33,700 --> 00:11:35,710 That is what we're talking about, 218 00:11:35,710 --> 00:11:37,173 of snow water equivalent. 219 00:11:38,180 --> 00:11:39,840 And you can see, from this graph, 220 00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:41,415 when you look at this four to five, 221 00:11:41,415 --> 00:11:44,770 five to six and six to eight, 222 00:11:44,770 --> 00:11:47,770 you can see those colors in this area here. 223 00:11:47,770 --> 00:11:52,770 And this is going into Oahe reservoir. 224 00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:55,350 But then a lot of this right here, 225 00:11:55,350 --> 00:11:57,050 remember that one slide I was talking about 226 00:11:57,050 --> 00:12:00,280 where there's no color, there's no purple, there's no blue. 227 00:12:00,280 --> 00:12:02,183 This is that unregulated area. 228 00:12:02,183 --> 00:12:04,690 It's the James River, the Big Sioux River, 229 00:12:04,690 --> 00:12:07,360 the Vermilion River and those all flow 230 00:12:07,360 --> 00:12:10,920 into the Missouri River down stream to Gavins Point. 231 00:12:10,920 --> 00:12:13,210 Very, very heavy snow up in those areas. 232 00:12:13,210 --> 00:12:16,080 And even in parts of Montana 233 00:12:16,080 --> 00:12:19,630 and then down into parts of Nebraska and Iowa 234 00:12:19,630 --> 00:12:22,430 you can see that we had one to two, two to three 235 00:12:22,430 --> 00:12:25,347 and in some cases, three to four inches 236 00:12:25,347 --> 00:12:27,753 of snow water equivalent in that plain snow. 237 00:12:29,459 --> 00:12:31,540 And of course, I will caveat this also 238 00:12:31,540 --> 00:12:34,270 we thought it all had melted but now it appears 239 00:12:34,270 --> 00:12:36,570 there's more snow melt over the next few days. 240 00:12:39,160 --> 00:12:42,103 So the second runoff component is mountain snowpack. 241 00:12:43,320 --> 00:12:47,730 Now, last year, we were about 140% of average. 242 00:12:47,730 --> 00:12:51,760 We had very heavy snow up in the mountains in 2018. 243 00:12:51,760 --> 00:12:56,690 In 2019, we're below average in both those regions. 244 00:12:56,690 --> 00:12:59,880 So this will be melting off and running into Fort Peck. 245 00:12:59,880 --> 00:13:02,430 This will be melting off and running into Garrison. 246 00:13:04,950 --> 00:13:06,293 And then precipitation. 247 00:13:07,350 --> 00:13:09,700 So if you look at the legend here again, 248 00:13:09,700 --> 00:13:13,130 when you see the blues and purples that's above average. 249 00:13:13,130 --> 00:13:14,403 Much above average. 250 00:13:14,403 --> 00:13:16,580 When you get into the yellows and reds, 251 00:13:16,580 --> 00:13:17,670 that's below average. 252 00:13:17,670 --> 00:13:20,690 What's we're seeing over the last three months, 253 00:13:20,690 --> 00:13:23,200 a lot of blues and purples. 254 00:13:23,200 --> 00:13:25,290 Over the last three months in the Missouri River Basin, 255 00:13:25,290 --> 00:13:28,070 it has been much wetter than normal. 256 00:13:28,070 --> 00:13:31,170 In some places, extremely wet. 257 00:13:31,170 --> 00:13:33,173 Three to four times more than normal. 258 00:13:34,020 --> 00:13:35,750 When we go over the last 30 days, 259 00:13:35,750 --> 00:13:37,750 you can see there are parts of the upper basin 260 00:13:37,750 --> 00:13:40,700 where it has been fairly dry. 261 00:13:40,700 --> 00:13:43,420 But then again, Kevin mentioned that storm 262 00:13:43,420 --> 00:13:46,400 that came through that really made a difference here. 263 00:13:46,400 --> 00:13:49,120 So some of these areas, three to four 264 00:13:49,120 --> 00:13:51,313 even up to six times normal. 265 00:13:53,700 --> 00:13:55,240 And then the precipitation outlooks. 266 00:13:55,240 --> 00:13:56,073 And he mentioned them, 267 00:13:56,073 --> 00:13:57,580 so I'm just going touch on them a little bit. 268 00:13:57,580 --> 00:14:01,090 We do use these in our runoff forecasts. 269 00:14:01,090 --> 00:14:03,480 It's really important to note that the equal chances, 270 00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:06,380 when you see this area that doesn't have a color on it, 271 00:14:06,380 --> 00:14:09,853 that doesn't mean it's not going to rain. 272 00:14:10,770 --> 00:14:12,690 What that equal chances means 273 00:14:12,690 --> 00:14:14,550 is that there's an equal chance 274 00:14:14,550 --> 00:14:17,840 of below normal precipitation, 275 00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:21,353 normal precipitation, and above normal precipitation. 276 00:14:22,470 --> 00:14:24,330 In other words, they really don't know 277 00:14:24,330 --> 00:14:27,000 what's gonna happen in these areas. 278 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:30,710 In the areas that are colored in green, 279 00:14:30,710 --> 00:14:33,410 means that they have a higher likelihood 280 00:14:33,410 --> 00:14:36,039 of it being above normal precipitation. 281 00:14:36,039 --> 00:14:39,930 And in the brown a higher likelihood 282 00:14:39,930 --> 00:14:42,438 of below normal precipitation. 283 00:14:42,438 --> 00:14:44,660 Did I characterize that correctly, Kevin Lowe? 284 00:14:44,660 --> 00:14:45,700 Thank you. 285 00:14:45,700 --> 00:14:47,600 I'm not a meteorologist, 286 00:14:47,600 --> 00:14:52,600 so sometimes I misinterpret what their products are. 287 00:14:53,610 --> 00:14:56,190 When we look out into July, August and September 288 00:14:56,190 --> 00:14:59,870 you can see a lot of that green in the lower basin. 289 00:14:59,870 --> 00:15:01,330 And just over the next three months, 290 00:15:01,330 --> 00:15:02,280 you can see a lot of green. 291 00:15:02,280 --> 00:15:04,940 So I would echo what Kevin says, 292 00:15:04,940 --> 00:15:08,823 that it could be very active these next few months. 293 00:15:11,410 --> 00:15:12,923 And then the soil conditions. 294 00:15:14,070 --> 00:15:15,780 Now I know that everyone has, right now, 295 00:15:15,780 --> 00:15:18,700 they have too much water in their minds. 296 00:15:18,700 --> 00:15:20,810 But our basin has gone through droughts, 297 00:15:20,810 --> 00:15:22,480 it will go through another drought. 298 00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:26,050 I don't know when, but it will go through a drought. 299 00:15:26,050 --> 00:15:29,020 And you can see that right now the basin, 300 00:15:29,020 --> 00:15:32,000 for the most part, there's only a little bit of Wyoming, 301 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:37,000 that's really showing any signs of below drier soils. 302 00:15:39,300 --> 00:15:41,670 In fact, when you look at the soil moisture content, 303 00:15:41,670 --> 00:15:45,800 this green is as dark as it can be on this scale. 304 00:15:45,800 --> 00:15:48,930 So we have areas of Nebraska, 305 00:15:48,930 --> 00:15:53,450 almost the entire state of Iowa and South Dakota, 306 00:15:53,450 --> 00:15:57,051 southeastern South Dakota that are extremely wet. 307 00:15:57,051 --> 00:15:59,980 And why that is important, and you all know this, 308 00:15:59,980 --> 00:16:01,640 if you have a garden, if you have a field, 309 00:16:01,640 --> 00:16:03,640 if you have extremely wet soils 310 00:16:04,480 --> 00:16:07,450 most of the rain that falls is going to become runoff. 311 00:16:07,450 --> 00:16:09,380 It's not going to soak into the ground. 312 00:16:09,380 --> 00:16:11,790 And so then that just make the run off, 313 00:16:11,790 --> 00:16:14,090 running off into the rivers, is gonna be more. 314 00:16:17,470 --> 00:16:19,406 So this graph is, 315 00:16:19,406 --> 00:16:21,500 I talked about the third highest of 120 years. 316 00:16:21,500 --> 00:16:25,430 Sixth highest of 121 years, this is really what shows that. 317 00:16:25,430 --> 00:16:28,160 This is all the way back to 1898. 318 00:16:28,160 --> 00:16:31,240 This is the annual runoff above Sioux City. 319 00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:35,423 So this was, right here in 2018, third highest. 320 00:16:36,470 --> 00:16:40,760 1997 and 2011 were the only ones higher. 321 00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:42,760 This is where we're at now in 2019, 322 00:16:42,760 --> 00:16:44,770 that's what we're forecasting 38.2. 323 00:16:45,970 --> 00:16:48,507 Sixth highest out of 120 years. 324 00:16:48,507 --> 00:16:52,670 And you can see, we've really had some wet years. 325 00:16:52,670 --> 00:16:56,040 But we have had periods where it has been 326 00:16:56,040 --> 00:16:58,680 below average for multiple years. 327 00:16:58,680 --> 00:17:03,680 This was the 1930-1941 drought, during the Great Depression. 328 00:17:03,958 --> 00:17:07,530 We've had four of those periods in our basin. 329 00:17:07,530 --> 00:17:09,503 The last one ending in 2007. 330 00:17:14,140 --> 00:17:19,140 So this graph depicts, this is how 2019 is stacking up, 331 00:17:20,380 --> 00:17:21,743 month by month. 332 00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:25,363 The blue is what has happened, 333 00:17:26,520 --> 00:17:29,440 the yellow is what we're forecasting. 334 00:17:29,440 --> 00:17:32,210 The red is the long term average. 335 00:17:32,210 --> 00:17:33,893 121 years of record. 336 00:17:34,960 --> 00:17:38,730 So you can see in January and February we're about average. 337 00:17:38,730 --> 00:17:43,220 But March, March was significant. 338 00:17:43,220 --> 00:17:48,220 11 million acre feet of clearly the record highest March 339 00:17:49,008 --> 00:17:51,610 upper basin has ever seen. 340 00:17:51,610 --> 00:17:52,643 Four times average. 341 00:17:53,700 --> 00:17:57,100 In April, we're expecting almost two times 342 00:17:57,100 --> 00:17:57,933 the average of runoff. 343 00:17:57,933 --> 00:18:01,270 And that really is just a reflection of the plains snow 344 00:18:01,270 --> 00:18:03,230 that has melted but just hasn't found 345 00:18:03,230 --> 00:18:05,210 its way to the reservoirs yet. 346 00:18:05,210 --> 00:18:07,440 I've mentioned that really wet soil out there 347 00:18:07,440 --> 00:18:08,990 so any precipitation that falls 348 00:18:08,990 --> 00:18:12,090 we think that is going to produce a lot of runoff. 349 00:18:12,090 --> 00:18:17,040 So we're expecting another very high runoff month in April. 350 00:18:17,040 --> 00:18:19,630 And May and June and July, as you recall, 351 00:18:19,630 --> 00:18:23,210 I said that's when the mountain snow pack melts. 352 00:18:23,210 --> 00:18:26,360 But the mountain snow pack right now is below average, 353 00:18:26,360 --> 00:18:30,470 but again because of the precipitation outlooks calling for 354 00:18:30,470 --> 00:18:32,080 above average precipitation 355 00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:34,800 and the very wet soils that we have, 356 00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:37,080 we're actually expecting the runoff in May, 357 00:18:37,080 --> 00:18:39,093 June and July to be above average. 358 00:18:40,150 --> 00:18:42,552 As we get out to August, September, October, 359 00:18:42,552 --> 00:18:46,450 there's less runoff during those drier months. 360 00:18:46,450 --> 00:18:48,430 And there's less reliability when it comes 361 00:18:48,430 --> 00:18:50,750 to the precipitation outlooks, 362 00:18:50,750 --> 00:18:52,350 so we're pretty much pulling for average 363 00:18:52,350 --> 00:18:53,183 during those months. 364 00:18:53,183 --> 00:18:56,960 But last year, we were very much above average 365 00:18:56,960 --> 00:18:59,760 during August, September and October, 366 00:18:59,760 --> 00:19:04,590 because as you recall it was a very wet summer and fall. 367 00:19:04,590 --> 00:19:06,993 Will that occur this year? It might. 368 00:19:10,650 --> 00:19:12,220 So let's talk about that March runoff 369 00:19:12,220 --> 00:19:13,480 at 11 million acre feet, 370 00:19:13,480 --> 00:19:15,383 I've talked about four times average. 371 00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:19,000 Not that we're here to break records, but we did. 372 00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:20,713 We broke a lot of records. 373 00:19:21,680 --> 00:19:23,890 It was the largest March runoff since 374 00:19:23,890 --> 00:19:26,430 recordkeeping began in 1898. 375 00:19:26,430 --> 00:19:30,660 Previous record was 7.3 million acre feet in 1952. 376 00:19:30,660 --> 00:19:32,610 For those of you that are old enough 377 00:19:32,610 --> 00:19:35,789 to remember 1952 that was a significant flood 378 00:19:35,789 --> 00:19:37,297 on the Missouri River. 379 00:19:37,297 --> 00:19:40,860 And a lot of changes remain based on that flood 380 00:19:40,860 --> 00:19:43,430 and what occurred during that flood. 381 00:19:43,430 --> 00:19:47,653 Again, four times the monthly average for March. 382 00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:51,810 When we look at reaches, between Oahe and Fort Randall, 383 00:19:51,810 --> 00:19:55,740 that was the record highest volume that that reach received. 384 00:19:55,740 --> 00:19:59,750 And it's more than that reach receives in a normal year 385 00:19:59,750 --> 00:20:01,840 that they received in March. 386 00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:03,700 It was a record highest volume in the reach 387 00:20:03,700 --> 00:20:05,230 between Fort Randall and Gavins Point, 388 00:20:05,230 --> 00:20:07,453 so this would be the Niobrara River. 389 00:20:08,655 --> 00:20:10,805 It is more than double the previous record. 390 00:20:11,710 --> 00:20:15,000 And then between Gavins Point and Sioux City 391 00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:17,000 which would be the James River, 392 00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:19,430 the Big Sioux River, the Vermilion River, 393 00:20:19,430 --> 00:20:22,310 now only again was the highest volume in that reach 394 00:20:22,310 --> 00:20:25,323 and it was again, just like this reach here. 395 00:20:26,262 --> 00:20:28,860 In March, we received more than we would normally receive 396 00:20:28,860 --> 00:20:30,923 in an entire year in that reach. 397 00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:35,257 So my last slide is to talk about 398 00:20:35,257 --> 00:20:39,693 the Gavins Point operations during the March event. 399 00:20:40,630 --> 00:20:45,630 I want to point out that we closed the gates 400 00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:49,800 at Fort Randall on March 13th. 401 00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:52,930 So there was no water flowing into 402 00:20:52,930 --> 00:20:56,770 the Gavins Point Reservoir as of March 13th. 403 00:20:56,770 --> 00:21:00,150 We recognized how much water 404 00:21:00,150 --> 00:21:02,480 was coming down the Niobrara River. 405 00:21:02,480 --> 00:21:05,230 And so we wanted to lessen the amount of water 406 00:21:05,230 --> 00:21:08,350 coming into Gavins Point to the extent we could. 407 00:21:08,350 --> 00:21:11,143 And that is the only control point we have 408 00:21:11,143 --> 00:21:13,833 upstream of Gavins Point Reservoir. 409 00:21:15,410 --> 00:21:17,893 And we closed Fort Randall, I believe, 410 00:21:18,748 --> 00:21:22,623 over a 10 day period for at least 8 of those days. 411 00:21:24,230 --> 00:21:26,140 But even with that, 412 00:21:26,140 --> 00:21:31,140 the inflow into Gavins Point was significant. 413 00:21:31,650 --> 00:21:35,800 Most of this came from the Niobrara River. 414 00:21:35,800 --> 00:21:40,280 And there are other streams that come into that area also. 415 00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:45,280 But as Kevin mentioned, it was two to four inches of rain, 416 00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:46,840 which is not significant. 417 00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:48,940 We've all seen two to four inches of rain. 418 00:21:49,860 --> 00:21:53,800 On top of two to four inches of snowpack. 419 00:21:53,800 --> 00:21:56,880 And again we've probably all seen that too. 420 00:21:56,880 --> 00:22:00,281 On top of deeply frozen ground. 421 00:22:00,281 --> 00:22:04,160 The combination of those three led to 422 00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:08,080 just tremendous amounts of water coming down 423 00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:09,750 the Niobrara River. 424 00:22:09,750 --> 00:22:11,940 As I'm sure you've all seen the Spencer Dam, 425 00:22:11,940 --> 00:22:14,850 which is not a Corps of Engineers project, 426 00:22:14,850 --> 00:22:18,620 was blown out, was destroyed by the amount of water 427 00:22:18,620 --> 00:22:20,170 coming down the Niobrara River. 428 00:22:22,950 --> 00:22:27,780 As we saw all this inflow coming down the Niobrara River, 429 00:22:27,780 --> 00:22:32,093 and as we saw the Gavins Point pool quickly filling, 430 00:22:33,620 --> 00:22:36,900 above the base of the exclusive flood control zone, 431 00:22:36,900 --> 00:22:40,400 and above the top of the exclusive flood control zone, 432 00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:42,870 we had to make some quick decisions. 433 00:22:42,870 --> 00:22:45,040 Now, let's just review what we have here now. 434 00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:47,430 So the base of the annual flood control, 435 00:22:47,430 --> 00:22:50,150 and I talked about that in one of the first slides, 436 00:22:50,150 --> 00:22:51,910 we were down here. 437 00:22:51,910 --> 00:22:55,660 Total flood control storage from here to here 438 00:22:57,210 --> 00:22:59,570 is 133,000 acre feet. 439 00:22:59,570 --> 00:23:01,050 Which sounds like a lot. 440 00:23:01,050 --> 00:23:03,260 133 is a lot. 441 00:23:03,260 --> 00:23:07,823 But it's not when you compare it to 16.3 million. 442 00:23:08,820 --> 00:23:13,350 This amount of storage is less than 1% of the storage 443 00:23:14,444 --> 00:23:17,930 of the entire six projects. 444 00:23:17,930 --> 00:23:21,230 The project was not built to be a big storage project. 445 00:23:21,230 --> 00:23:24,220 It was built and designed and it is operated 446 00:23:24,220 --> 00:23:26,190 as a re-regulation project. 447 00:23:26,190 --> 00:23:28,520 What does that mean? 448 00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:31,123 What does it mean to be a re-regulation project? 449 00:23:32,120 --> 00:23:36,410 And it really, the point of it, is to smooth out the flows 450 00:23:36,410 --> 00:23:38,240 from Fort Randall. 451 00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:41,593 Fort Randall is a hydropeaking power plant. 452 00:23:42,570 --> 00:23:46,330 What that means is, it releases more water 453 00:23:46,330 --> 00:23:50,310 and generates more power when that power is most needed. 454 00:23:50,310 --> 00:23:53,510 So during the high usage parts of the day, 455 00:23:53,510 --> 00:23:57,000 they release more, more releases. 456 00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:00,850 During the lower use portions of the day, 457 00:24:00,850 --> 00:24:02,820 they reduce those releases. 458 00:24:02,820 --> 00:24:05,560 So you see this sort of wave effect 459 00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:07,010 coming out from Fort Randall. 460 00:24:07,980 --> 00:24:12,180 Gavins Point takes that water, takes that wave, 461 00:24:12,180 --> 00:24:15,253 and through it's releases, smooths it out. 462 00:24:16,300 --> 00:24:19,110 So that it can be used downstream, 463 00:24:19,110 --> 00:24:22,433 primarily for navigation and water supply. 464 00:24:23,290 --> 00:24:24,893 But it also produces hydropower. 465 00:24:26,070 --> 00:24:30,520 So as we saw, let's go into the 466 00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:32,570 base of exclusive flood control, 467 00:24:32,570 --> 00:24:36,890 and realizing it was gonna go into the top 468 00:24:36,890 --> 00:24:38,310 of the exclusive flood control zone. 469 00:24:38,310 --> 00:24:41,260 And again, what do we mean by top of 470 00:24:41,260 --> 00:24:42,593 exclusive flood control? 471 00:24:44,530 --> 00:24:48,610 There are 14 spillway gates at Gavins Point. 472 00:24:48,610 --> 00:24:51,350 When those spillway gates are closed, 473 00:24:51,350 --> 00:24:52,873 we're at elevation 1210. 474 00:24:53,990 --> 00:24:58,970 Anything above 1210 without operating those gates, 475 00:24:58,970 --> 00:25:00,803 the water spills over the gates. 476 00:25:01,810 --> 00:25:04,400 The gates are not designed to have water spilling 477 00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:05,580 over top of them. 478 00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:11,200 So what we had to do, and what Tom and his crew had to do, 479 00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:13,583 was to raise all of those gates. 480 00:25:14,420 --> 00:25:18,410 And when you raise those gates and the water exceeds 481 00:25:18,410 --> 00:25:20,990 the top elevation of 1210, 482 00:25:20,990 --> 00:25:24,940 you're actually creating more storage in the reservoir. 483 00:25:24,940 --> 00:25:29,340 So by doing that, we went from 133 484 00:25:29,340 --> 00:25:32,650 to over 200,000 acre feet. 485 00:25:32,650 --> 00:25:36,800 We created about 70,000 more acre feet by doing that. 486 00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:39,100 So we peaked at 12, 12.3. 487 00:25:39,100 --> 00:25:41,513 We surcharged all 14 gates, 488 00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:46,090 which we had never done before at Gavins Point. 489 00:25:46,090 --> 00:25:48,840 We have done it at Fort Peck 490 00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:51,060 and we have done it at Garrison. 491 00:25:51,060 --> 00:25:53,770 It's not an operation that we do, 492 00:25:53,770 --> 00:25:55,750 that we like to do at all. 493 00:25:55,750 --> 00:25:58,460 And we do it with great apprehension. 494 00:25:58,460 --> 00:26:01,657 Because we increase the risk of those gates 495 00:26:01,657 --> 00:26:04,050 not being able to be closed. 496 00:26:04,050 --> 00:26:05,890 Because they're really not designed 497 00:26:05,890 --> 00:26:08,350 to be operated in that manner. 498 00:26:08,350 --> 00:26:13,170 But we understood what the situation was 499 00:26:13,170 --> 00:26:16,756 and our efforts were to minimize the amount of water 500 00:26:16,756 --> 00:26:19,033 we had to release out of Gavins Point. 501 00:26:20,020 --> 00:26:22,333 But even with that additional storage, 502 00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,607 we were forced to increase releases up to 503 00:26:26,607 --> 00:26:30,330 100,000 cfs for a six hour period. 504 00:26:30,330 --> 00:26:33,720 Because we saw that even with raising the gates, 505 00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:35,753 that the pool continued to rise. 506 00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:41,650 As we finally saw the pool peak and work it's way down, 507 00:26:41,650 --> 00:26:43,970 we were then able to step down the release. 508 00:26:43,970 --> 00:26:46,280 As you can see, we're always a little bit more 509 00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:49,770 than inflow because we needed to get that pool level 510 00:26:49,770 --> 00:26:52,530 out of surcharge zone, 511 00:26:52,530 --> 00:26:57,070 and we needed to get it out of exclusive flood control zone 512 00:26:57,070 --> 00:26:58,923 and that's what you're seeing right here. 513 00:27:03,530 --> 00:27:06,433 Alright, so with that I will turn it over to Mike.