The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) Missouri River Basin Water Management Division will hold five public meetings next week to update stakeholders on the planned operation of the Missouri River Mainstem Reservoir System. The public meetings will include a presentation from the Corps regarding current basin conditions and plans for operating the reservoir system in 2017, followed by a question and answer session. There will also be an opportunity for members of the public to speak one-on-one with Corps officials before and after the meetings.
The reservoir system began the 2017 runoff season at the base of the annual flood control pool, providing the full 16.3 million acre-feet (MAF) of flood control storage. The total volume of water stored in the reservoir system is currently 58.5 MAF. “System storage currently occupies 2.4 MAF of the 16.3 MAF flood control zone,” said Jody Farhat, chief of the Corps of Engineers’ (Corps) Missouri River Basin Water Management Division. “Approximately 85 percent of the flood control storage remains available to capture runoff from the spring rainfall and mountain snowmelt.” All significant plains snowpack has melted.