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Release No. 38-07
Contact: P.J. Spaul
Phone: (501) 324-5551

CORPS TO FOLLOW APPROVED PLAN
FOR CLEARWATER LAKE LEVEL IN SUMMER

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., May 2 – To manage water levels at Clearwater Lake in southeastern Missouri for the forthcoming summer, the Army Corps of Engineers announced today that the previously approved Clearwater Lake Operating Plan will be used. This calls for the lake to transition from elevation 494 to elevation 498 beginning immediately. The plan calls for the lake to remain at elevation 498 until June 1 and then transition back to elevation 494 by early October.

Public safety is the Corps' top concern. Since a sinkhole was found on the embankment of the dam in 2003, Little Rock District has considered the structural integrity of the dam to be a high priority matter of interest. The sinkhole was repaired quickly. A major effort continues to further investigate the dam’s condition, to repair deficiencies discovered since then, and to construct a new cutoff wall within the dam as a permanent solution.

Also, Little Rock District officials have hired a panel of geotechnical consultants to independently assess the dam's condition, provide technical guidance, and recommend short- and long-term solutions. The panel concurs that there is only minimal risk associated with this seasonal pool increase.

Clearwater Dam has been categorized as one of the Corps' six high risk dams nationwide. Thus it receives priority for funding, studies, investigations and remedial work. A separate independent peer review by national dam safety experts outside the Corps also concurrently examines the Corps' work. This panel's assessment of Clearwater Dam is ongoing with a final report expected in the coming months.

Corps officials have taken several interim risk reduction measures, which include increased inspections, monitoring, pool restrictions, additional instrumentation, investigative drilling and grouting work on the dam. Over the past two decades, the Corps has made structural improvements to the dam to help reduce risk and has undertaken other measures as well. In addition, the Corps maintains a current emergency action plan should any problem arise, and this plan has been well coordinated with local officials.

Clearwater Lake is subject to rapid increases in its water level during rainstorms. As a result, Corps officials note that water releases may have to be made above normal levels during maximum flood events. For those occasions, the Corps has implemented a separate Water Control Action Plan that could result in some downstream flooding during heavy, persistent rains in order to reduce stress on the dam. Such events are not normal during summer months. Public warnings would be given prior to such releases.

The lake will continue to provide downstream flood damage reduction benefits, although possibly at a reduced level during extreme flooding until the Clearwater Dam Major Rehabilitation Project can be completed.

The first phase of the two-phase Clearwater Dam Major Rehabilitation Project is well under way. The first phase consists of investigative drilling and grouting. A concrete cutoff wall will be constructed within the dam across its length in the second phase. When completed in about five years, the project will alleviate chronic seepage problems that first appeared many years ago.

Corps officials will continue to keep local officials and the public informed. Additional information will be posted on the Internet when available at http://www.swl.usace.army.mil, then click “CW Lake Major Rehabilitation”. For more information, please call the Clearwater Project Office at (573) 223-7777.