(Spirit Lake)– It was revealed during today’s (Tues.) Dickinson County Board of Supervisors meeting that there have been some preliminary talks into the possibility of cutting the road at the Lower Gar Outlet in an effort to help reduce lake levels. County Engineer Cole Budach says there was discussion about that during a special meeting this past weekend in a meeting involving the Emergency Management Board and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers…
“I think it was the consensus of everybody in the group that there’s no point in opening it right now with the flooding effects that are going down in Spencer. We do not want to increase any pressure down that way, so there will be a wait of at least a couple weeks as we wait for those floodwaters to recede before there’s any action by Dickinson county.”
In the meantime, Budach says they’re gathering more information and research…
“I have been in communication with Dr. Weber and Nate Young down at the University of Iowa Hydro Sciences Lab and they are looking at what type of flow rates we’ll see based on current lake levels for if we open the road up entirely and then at different stages of opening the road. So obviously there’s likely to be some enhanced downstream affects, especially on the outlet creek area. As we move into the larger Little Sioux River watershed, those affects of opening up the outlet are decreased pretty significantly.”
Budach again emphasized that there are no immediate plans to make a decision on cutting the road at Lower Gar. The discussion surfaced during an update on the flood provided as part of today’s (Tues.) Board of Supervisors meeting.
