[River Reporter] =Gimme Water: Op-Ed by Hancock, NY Stalwarts=

[TR]

Hi Tony,

You spend so much time trying to prove me wrong...


Jim

-----

Good morning.

Jim, you were wrong.

Look at the chart from Cornell U. / NOAA.

Yellow. Do you see it?

Below average precip for the Upper Delaware River region in 2014.

You wrote otherwise.

Tight lines.

 

[trico mike]

Someone help me to understand better what is going on. How much cold water is available for release and what cfs could reasonably be maintained with the available water? I was also wondering if ny was dealing mote water in the winter to prevent ice,and then again I'm may for thermal stress what percentage would cannonsville be starting out in June?. I would prefer to see more water stored and saved till the dog days of summer then dumped in winter and spring. Even down to callicoon the temps haven't remained high enough long enough to kill fish. I would like to know what flows could be maintained and how far down the main could be controlled for thermal issues.

 

[Big_Spinner]

Hi Fred,

You are pretty much right with your analysis of the FAW and FFMP/OST tables.

Any water above Table 4A is voluntary.

There is a protocol in place to determine if there is available water (FAW).

I do not think that NYC is operating within the original protocols set in the FFMP, but we do not really know as there is a bit of a black box here.

We are certainly in a time of dry, but not dry enough to have Montague Directed releases kick in.

It does look like a good burst of water the next couple of days would help drive us into the tables to release 400,140, 100 or 500, 140, 100 on Can, Pep and Nev rivers.

I do think that we should be in those tables now, based on the water and inflows available, but it is hard to determine.

Jim

 

[Big_Spinner]

Hi Tony,

Regardless, if you believe the graph you showed or the table of precipitation you showed for 2014, it was slightly above or slightly below average.

The best take away from last year was how well FFMP performed under those conditions.

As you can see from the graph.

Natural flows provided water in May and as natural flows went down, we were in Table F or G for June, July and August. This gave us 500 cfs release from Cannonsville.

Just into September the release dropped to 400 and it got dry and the Directed releases for Montague kicked in and gave us releases of 600 to 1000 cfs well into October.

I think this also illustrates how much dryer we have been this year, or even, as you try to illustrate, 2014 was a dry year, 2015 has been much dryer. Hence the reduced releases starting last winter and continuing into the spring and summer.

Hope this helps,

jim

 

[Big_Spinner]

Hi Trico,

These are great and direct questions. There are no easy answers, but the answers are available.

Part of the answer, is "it depends". How do you define "cold" and is "clear water" an important consideration?

These are exactly the kinds of questions that we have worked on with the modeling for many years.

The OASIS model allows you to try a series of releases, or example, lets try 300, 400 500, 600, 700 cfs release for the summer period on the West Branch.

The model "runs" a simulation from 1928 to 2012 everyday and returns results.

Some of the results you can look at would be:

What is the effect on Cannonsville levels at the end of the summer?

Has there been enough release to drive the system down into a level of drought or a significantly lower table?

What do the temperatures look like on any segment of the river?

Lots of data.

The next step could be how is trout habitat effected? This can be looked at with the USGS Decision Support Model. OASIS data is entered into it and the output from the USGS model measures habitat on many different river segments.

I actually have the raw data from any of these runs in my office in Hancock and would be willing to share them to anyone that has interest.

I can also teach you how to run these models on your own.

As some have mentioned on this site, models are not telling us what is really happening. That is true to some extent. An extensive in the river survey could help to see if the river is acting as the model predicted and what is really happening to fish populations.

Stop in sometime and I will be happy to share.

jim

 

[Big_Spinner]

Hi Trico,

Here is a quick calculation for you.

Cannonsville holds roughly 96 billion gallons of water.

Today there is about 90 bg in there.

About 2/3 of that or 60 bg is cold and clear.

We will not get more of the good cold clear stuff until next winter.

So, 60 bg of water if we could use it just to release this summer for the river, we could have a release of 600 cfs for 154 days.

600 * 154 = 92740 cfs/days

That is out of the bank of cold clear gold!!

600 for 154 days

400 for 232 days.

You get the idea.

By the time we get to the end of that 60 bg, we will still have cool water in the reservoir, but it will come out quite discolored.

This does not take into account any inflow this summer since that water will not be cold and clear. There have been years where the inflow is sufficient to keep the reservoir pretty full right through the summer, but no more cold clear stuff.

This bank of water will be used for Montague Directed releases since that comes out of the bottom of Cannonsville.. There are some days that 1200 cfs could be called for to meet the Montague target. Some years there is no call for Montague release.

Okay, these are the parameters, what do you want to do with it?

Oh yes, NYC could divert some of this to the city for use. They tend to divert from the other reservoirs in the summer, but they may take some from Cannonsville.

Let's say, no diversion to NYC.

We reserve 27,000 (300*90 days) to keep the West Branch cold and clear during fall and spawning season (Oct, Nov, Dec)

We will also allow for 12,000 (400 cfs for 30 days) as a supplement for Montague releases.

This leaves 53,700 cfs/days to use to help the river.

We could use that for June, July, Aug, and Sept at a constant rate. This would give us a release of 400 cfs for those 4 months. Perhaps some of those months, there would be more water released if Montague release "bank" was tapped.

Jim

 

[NJFred]

Someone help me to understand better what is going on. How much cold water is available for release and what cfs could reasonably be maintained with the available water? I was also wondering if ny was dealing mote water in the winter to prevent ice,and then again I'm may for thermal stress what percentage would cannonsville be starting out in June?. I would prefer to see more water stored and saved till the dog days of summer then dumped in winter and spring. Even down to callicoon the temps haven't remained high enough long enough to kill fish. I would like to know what flows could be maintained and how far down the main could be controlled for thermal issues.

Mike, Start by reading the current FFMP document to see what's in place. You can access it here. http://water.usgs.gov/osw/odrm/documents/FFMP_2014_Agreement.pdf

In terms of how much water is available for the fishery, one first has to ask the question to do what? The objective if you wish. Many of us based upon years of experience on the system and a little math believe that the objective should be to cool the main down to at least Buck across the summer. There is not enough water available to cool the river across a year to Callicoon. An objective to cool the upper Main would provide a thermal refuge for the fish who have scientifically been proven to move miles over the course of a year.

How much water would this take? If you look at the last two summers and other history, a 500CFS release from Cannonsville or so would seem to be reasonable both in terms of generally meeting this goal (not always) and the amount of water available. A little more in some situations and perhaps a little less in others. So let's look at the 10 days in May or so when the ambients became too warm. Say the average release there was 150CFS. A 500 CFS release from Cannonsville for 10 days would have been an incremental 350CFS for 10 days. Keeping in mind that a release of 1000CFS per day is roughly 2/3% of Cannonsville capacity, those extra 350CFS would have cost about 2% of the water in Cannonsville. Instead of sitting at 94% full today, we would have been at 92% full. In other words not much of a difference in available water. If one only released for say 5 days, near the peaks, or tapered the release upward over time, it may of cost only 1% of the capacity of Cannonsville to manage the situation.

You may wonder, what about the releases from Pepacton to achieve this objective? It appears again to many of us... it would take more water to achieve the objective with releases from Pepacton than from Cannonsville as the lower east is unfortunately great at heating water. Better to release there to maintain the upper East but pull water from Cannonsville to cool the upper Main. Further, NYC treasures Pepacton water as it's higher quality than Cannonsville.

Keep in mind that I think what NYC really fears is a sustained high release to meet the Montague minimum over a long period of time. In some cases these releases have been over 1000CFS and have almost drained Cannonsville. You can see that 1000CFS over a month would be 20% of the capacity of the reservoir. Assuming for a second that inflow from precip and out flow for NYC drinking are balanced, a figure like that would eat up 60% of Cannonsville's water. Scary right? 500CFS, would only be 30% over three months. Really one needs a solid consistent flow for 2 months from June 15 to August 15 when ambients start to drift lower.

Hope this helps put things in perspective for you and addresses a few of your questions.

 

[NJFred]

Hi Fred,

You are pretty much right with your analysis of the FAW and FFMP/OST tables.

Any water above Table 4A is voluntary.

There is a protocol in place to determine if there is available water (FAW).

I do not think that NYC is operating within the original protocols set in the FFMP, but we do not really know as there is a bit of a black box here.

We are certainly in a time of dry, but not dry enough to have Montague Directed releases kick in.

It does look like a good burst of water the next couple of days would help drive us into the tables to release 400,140, 100 or 500, 140, 100 on Can, Pep and Nev rivers.

I do think that we should be in those tables now, based on the water and inflows available, but it is hard to determine.

Jim

Let's hope we get that forecast H2O, up to 2 inches, most importantly above the reservoirs.

 

[JOE.T]

By popular demand I was able to set up a couple of cage fight's.

NO RULES-Even some weapons allowed i.e. Black Jacks,Bat's and anything Kung-Fu experts would use.

For the preliminary bout we've got:

John "The Fanatic from the Future"

VS.

Jeff "Brachy" Churchy


For the main event we have a battle of the Titans. 2 Real Estate heavyweights fighting for the Belt.

James "Big Spinner " Serio

VS.

Tony "Bassin" Ritter

This Friday in the McDonlads parking lot in Hancock..10:30 P.M. Some of us need time to get off the water (hopefully cold water)

The $20 for admission will go directly to the FUDR to help our Cause.

The winners get Bragging rights,free Big Macs for a month (Tuesday nights only)

I'm guessing with No Rules losers are probably heading to a hospital or Urgent care.

But hey someone has to take one for the team.

DC will be the Referee.

Mac,Fred and WBLuver will be the judges.

Good Luck

 

[FIN-ITE 34]

By popular demand I was able to set up a couple of cage fight's.

NO RULES-Even some weapons allowed i.e. Black Jacks,Bat's and anything Kung-Fu experts would use.

For the preliminary bout we've got:

John "The Fanatic from the Future"

VS.

Jeff "Brachy" Churchy


For the main event we have a battle of the Titans. 2 Real Estate heavyweights fighting for the Belt.

James "Big Spinner " Serio

VS.

Tony "Bassin" Ritter

This Friday in the McDonlads parking lot in Hancock..10:30 P.M. Some of us need time to get off the water (hopefully cold water)

The $20 for admission will go directly to the FUDR to help our Cause.

The winners get Bragging rights,free Big Macs for a month (Tuesday nights only)

I'm guessing with No Rules losers are probably heading to a hospital or Urgent care.

But hey someone has to take one for the team.

DC will be the Referee.

Mac,Fred and WBLuver will be the judges.

Good Luck

I like a shot at being the cut man for one of the fighters, except for FF because as we all know, he doesn't bleed.

 

[JOE.T]

I like a shot at being the cut man for one of the fighters, except for FF because as we all know, he doesn't bleed.

Your in

Can you also work the door and collect money? It's cash only BTW.

I'm also trying to set up a fight with Comparadun and I.

Problem is some say he started a pet cemetery for all of his trout that died during the last heat wave and hasn't been seen or heard from.

 

[Big_Spinner]

Hi,

No more flow questions!!!

I am in training!!!

 

[FIN-ITE 34]

Can you also work the door and collect money? It's cash only BTW

Collect and watch over the cash only fee? You betcha'!

Might be able to swing that western trip after all.

 

[JOE.T]

Hi,

No more flow questions!!!

I am in training!!!

Jim you may not have steps to run up , but the mountain should work, and don't forget the eggs.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/vide...age=1352908800&fr2=p:s,v:v&fr=chrf-yff19&tt=b