While snow in the valleys has melted significantly, Uintah Water Conservancy District General Manager William Merkley shared with Evans Family Media this week that temperatures haven’t warmed enough to have any significant runoff yet from the mountains. Still, he is hopeful that when it does it will go a long way in filling reservoirs. “As far as Red Fleet is concerned, stream flow projections give us hope that we may fill Red Fleet,” shared Merkley. “Anything that comes down Big Brush Creek flows directly into Red Fleet. As far as Steinaker is concerned, that is more dependent on how the snowmelt comes off the mountain. We have to divert water from Ashley Creek to fill Steinaker and we are limited by the capacity of the canal that links the reservoir to Ashley Creek. We’ll take as much as we can and put it in the reservoir, but once we reach capacity of our canal, then we have to let the rest go on downstream.” When asked about possible spring flooding scenarios, Merkley said they are doing their best to prepare just like every other entity. “Homeowners, business owners and water users in the valleys should be aware that the longer that we go into the spring season without significant warm up, then the potential for flooding increases,” he explained. “We’ll just pray for a slow warm up and hopefully the runoff comes in a metered way and we’re able to utilize all that we can.” Comparisons have been made of this winter to that of 1983 when the entire state experienced severe flooding from runoff. Merkley said for history to repeat itself, we would have to continue to build snowpack until the end of May and then have it warm up very, very quickly so all the snowpack would come off in a very short period of time. Merkley noted that it’s still not a perfect reflection of what would happen as there are big differences between then and now as far as infrastructure differences and being prepared. The bottom line, however, is that homeowners, business owners, and water users should work now to get prepared for potential flooding and the rest is yet to be seen.
