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September 18, 2007

Amesbury set to begin drawing down water

Katie Farrell

AMESBURY — The Upper Millyard gives ample proof the region hasn’t seen a lot of rain lately.

The Powow River — the same river that raged through the Upper Millyard during the Mother’s Day flood of 2006, threatening to burst the millyard’s dam and surge through downtown — has been reduced to a comparative trickle these days.

During that spring’s floods, the Powow swelled to about 4 feet over the top of the dam in the Upper Millyard.

“Right now, at the Millyard, it’s 4 feet below the dam,” Town Engineer Robert Desmarais said yesterday.

“It’s close to a trickle,” Jon Higgins, the director of the Powow River Watershed Association, said yesterday. “It’s remarkable how little water is flowing out” downstream, where at low tide the river cascades down to a tidal waterway.

After a dry summer, the Powow and its connected waterways are unusually low. Town officials have been monitoring the waterways each day, keeping track of how low the water has dropped and if it should be shifted by raising or lowering the dams along the river.

“It was of one of the driest Augusts on record,” Desmarais said.

Despite the appearance of the Powow, Desmarais said, low water levels are having no impact on the town’s water quality, but it affects recreational uses — Lake Attitash, which feeds into the Powow, is already a shallow body of water, he said.

If the drought had continued, Desmarais said, the town would have looked to “move water around” or work with the town’s dams to shift the water levels for the town’s waterways.

The recent rain has alleviated those concerns, he said.

The town raises water levels for the summer months for recreation, and the town will begin its annual fall routine of “drawing down” the water on Monday. Desmarais will start by lowering Lake Attitash. Tuxbury Pond and Lake Gardner will follow. When water begins to shift from Lake Attitash, it will start bringing up the water level at Lake Gardner, he said.

By Wednesday, water should be covering over the Powow River dam in the Millyard, Desmarais said.

Every year, the town has until November to draw down about 21/2 feet of water from the summer water levels, Desmarais said.

Of course, people are already seeing how low it can go.

“I’ve definitely noticed it,” Higgins said. “We’ve been having very little, to any, rain since probably July.”

The Back River also “very low,” Higgins said. And at the Powow, the water level is “one of the lowest I’ve seen.”

While the Powow in the Upper Millyard is dry, Desmarais warned against using that as a judge to the level of the town’s water supply.

“The Millyard is not a good indicator,” he said.

All the town’s water bodies are below “normal pool,” Desmarais said. Normal pool is the reference point to measure the levels, he said. It refers to where the water level is in relation to the top of the dam.

At Newton Road Weir, by the water treatment plant, the Powow River is about 8 inches below normal pool, or below the top of the dam, Desmarais said. At Lake Attitash, the water is 6 inches below normal pool. Meadowbrook is 14 inches below normal pool, he said.

In the Millyard, the Powow “is so low I can’t even measure it,” he said.

It’s the first dry year since 2001, Desmarais said.

But fluctuating water levels can also be a good thing, Higgins said. Areas of the river that are normally under water and not exposed, can be aired, he said. The river banks also have a chance to dry out, he said.

South Hampton residents will start to see more water pass their houses next week, as well.

“We’re actually taking water from them, so they do get affected somewhat,” Desmarais said.

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