Friends of the Bighorn River

Steve Davies, Facilities Operations and Maintenance Division at the Montana Area Office or Reclamation just sent out this alert:

Good afternoon to everyone:

As you know, Reclamation has a contractor working at the Yellowtail Afterbay Dam to recoat all of the metal gates at the dam.  The contractor has been utilizing a large barge platform and three support boats immediately upstream side of the dam to accomplish this work.  Early this morning high winds and subsequent wave action capsized two of the boats and damaged the barge and the third boat.  Efforts are underway, as onsite conditions allow, to stabilize and remove the damaged craft.  No injuries or fluid spills have been reported. 

We have notified downstream emergency management officials as well as the Crow Tribe and BIA, and will keep you apprised of any changes or new developments.

Please call me if you have any questions or concerns, thanks.

Steve Davies, Manager
Facilities Operations and Maintenance Division
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
Montana Area Office
Office:  406-247-7307
Cell:  406-855-1446
sdavies@usbr.gov

Watch this site for additional updates.

The Afterbay parking lot project that was started in the spring of 2011 is scheduled to be completed next week (January 16 through January 20) according to Jerry Case, Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area superintendent.  According to Jerry,  the contractor is going to install some small concrete blocks which are approximately 1 foot square by 5 inches thick , along the side of the existing concrete boat ramp. The blocks will be installed in an area roughly 9 feet wide and 68 feet long. These blocks will help prevent erosion from water that runs off of the parking lot. When the work is completed , vehicles and boat trailers will still be able to drive on the blocks and use the area alongside the existing boat ramp.

The ramp and parking lot will both remain open for public use and boat launching during the construction. The contractor will place safety cones or flagging on part of the ramp and parking lot for their materials, equipment, and space needed for completing the work. This work could not be done during the summer when river flows were close to 15,000 cfs , but now that the flows have returned to a more normal rate, the work site is accessible. Also, the amount of river visitation and boat ramp usage is low and the work can be done with minimal visitor inconvenience. If weather conditions change or snowfall prevents work progress , the work schedule is subject to change. Watch this site for fruther updates.

A special thanks to John Sindland for getting this information to us.

This just arrived from Reclamation:

This Reclamation update came this afternoon while I was floating the river with two other good Friends of the Bighorn River:

 This arrived a short time ago from Reclamation:

Word just came from Reclamation that "due to the recent precipitation received during October 6-7, inflows into Bighorn Lake increased to nearly 12,000cfs. Storage has entered the exclusive flood pool and continues to slowly increase. To slow the rate of fill and evacuate flood storage in Bighorn Lake, the following operation change is required:"

Yellowtail Stakeholders and Interested Parties:  This message is to provide you with notification of Reclamation’s plans to reduce our releases from Yellowtail Dam to the Bighorn River.  Yellowtail Reservoir is currently at about elevation 3640.1 feet, and is expected to reach elevation 3640.0 feet and be out of the exclusive flood control pool in the coming days.   In order to control the rate of evacuation of the reservoir, we are planning to make the following reduction in our releases:

Wednesday, October 5 at 4:00 PM:  Releases from Yellowtail Dam will be reduced from about 3,500 cfs to about 3,250 cfs.

Additional information regarding the current operational conditions at Yellowtail Dam and Reservoir can be obtained at  http://www.usbr.gov/gp/lakes_reservoirs/montana_lakes.htm.  Please let me know if you have any questions about our current operations at Yellowtail Dam.

Thanks again,

 Steve Davies

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
Montana Area Office
Office:  406-247-7307
Cell:  406-855-1446
sdavies@usbr.gov

Reclamation has indicated that irrigation demands are starting to scale back for the season. To continue evacuating storage in Bighorn Lake and hit Reclamation's end-of-October target lake elevation of 3,640 (full pool), the following changes in river releases will be made:

On Tuesday, September 13 at 4pm, river releases will be reduced from 4,000cfs to 3,800cfs.

On Thursday, September 15 at 4pm, river releases will be reduced from 3,800cfs to 3,500cfs.

It is important to note that at this time, the current operating plan based on the most probably inflow forecast indicates that the end-of-March 2012 target lake elevation is 3,620.75ft. We will be monitoring the end-of-March targets closely for WY2012.

As the algae continues to wreak havoc up and down the river, Reclamation dropped river releases to 4,000cfs this morning at 1130.

Here's an update that clarifies the discrepancy in river flows. Please note that the USGS site shows a calculated river flow which is derived from a river stage measurement, and that algae dramatically alters river stage as it grows or dies off.

Got the next water order change from Reclamation a short while ago. Looks like river releases will continue to drop as expected.

Just received a water order change from Reclamation. Although the river releases have been at or near 5,400cfs all day, the water order calls for a decrease in releases to 5,400cfs at 4pm today.