TVA continued to spill water through its main river dams today to help draw down rain-swollen reservoirs deluged with rainstorms during each of the past two weekends.
TVA today is spilling 28,900 cubic feet per second (or 216,500 gallons of water per second) through nine of its spillways at the Chickamauga Dam in Chattanooga today. Downstream at the Nickajack Dam in Marion County, TVA is spilling 32,5090 cubic feet per second, or 243,750 gallons per second.
TVA continued to spill water through its main river dams Monday, May 1, to help draw down rain-swollen reservoirs deluged with rainstorms during each of the past two weekends.“It appears that we have crested most of the reservoirs on the eastern side of our service territory, at least from the current rain events,” TVA spokesman Jim Hopson said today. “We are still working to safely move water downstream so we can recover some of our runoff storage capability in anticipation of later rains.”
More than an inch of rain fell today and Sunday in most of the Chattanooga area, following a couple of inches or more of rainfall the previous weekend. Although lake levels on the Chickamauga and Watts Bar reservoirs rose slightly above normal summertime pool levels, Hopson said TVA has been moving water downstream for more than week by operating its hydroelectric generating dams around the clock and opening spillways on most mainstream dams.
TVA this spring also is spilling water at its Norris Dam near Knoxville for the first time since 2013. But Hopson said TVA doesn’t anticipate any immediate flooding problems from the heavy springtime rains in the past couple of weeks.
TVA uses its network of 49 reservoirs to help control the flow of the Tennessee River to avoid floods which once often flooded Chattanooga and other low-lying riverfront communities during heavy springtime rains.