Faucet to the Apalachicola River turned down

Drought conditions across the southeast are forcing the US Army Corps of Engineers to go into drought mode which means the amount of water flowing into the Apalachicola will drop.

The Corps said that stream flows are reaching historic low levels throughout the basin and have already set record lows on the Flint River due to lack of normal winter and spring rains.

By entering drought operations, the minimum flow into the Apalachicola River becomes 5,000 cubic feet per second to protect threatened and endangered species.

The Corps will maintain the minimum flow and store all available rainfall when possible until the basin recovers sufficiently to come out of drought operations.

Despite spring rains in March at several locations throughout the basin, the overall conditions on the Flint and lower portions of the Chattahoochee have remained in a drought situation since the end of last summer. 

Currently Lake Lanier stands at 1,065.07 feet above sea level, or 6 feet below full.

The Corps said that at this time the long range forecast for the ACF basin does not look promising.

It will take significant and frequent storm events to recharge the basin hydrology, or a tropical system, before operations and lake levels return to normal.

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