Q: For about the last week, Lake Allatoona’s level has been rising almost every day, whether it has rained or not. Are they not releasing as much water as previously, or as much as the other lakes?
—Fred Scanling, Big Canoe
A: Lake Allatoona, part of the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa River Basin, and Carters Lake in the Blue Ridge mountains have both had rising water levels for the past few weeks because they have been releasing the minimum-required amount of water.
“Inflow into these two projects has exceeded the discharge, allowing storage to occur and reservoir levels to increase,” Lisa Hunter, chief of public affairs for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, told Q&A on the News in an email.
While the reservoir levels in many Georgia lakes have increased because of recent rainfall, Hunter noted that Buford Dam’s water levels have not risen the same way as Lake Allatoona’s.
“Buford Dam, the headwater project in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, has a greater discharge requirement, to meet both water supply and water quality,” Hunter wrote.
She added that the water level in that reservoir has remained stable because the outflow and inflow are about the same.
Fast Copy News Service wrote this column; Katie Tiller contributed. Do you have a question? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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