Hopefully you don’t need reminding that the Trinity River can be a very dangerous place to swim, especially when the current is flowing fast.
Well, you want to be very, very cautious over the upcoming days, because the Bureau of Reclamation is going to send a big blast of water down the river from Lewiston Dam soon. The river is going to be very, very full next week.
Reclamation will start ramping things up Thursday morning early. Between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., they’ll slowly double the amount of water they’re currently putting into the river. They’ll reduce a bit that evening, and then hold there until Monday. During this time, Lewiston will send 500 cubic feet of water per second down the river — up from about 300, at the moment.
So this weekend, the river is going to be running higher and stronger than it is currently at places like Tish Tang or Camp Kimtu. Swim with caution.
But the really big pulse starts Monday, and maybe you should think twice about getting into the Trinity at all next week. Reclamation will rapidly up Lewiston’s output to about 2,400 cubic feet per second Tuesday evening — eight times the current flow. This fills up the river right quick with cold, swift, basically unswimmable water. They’ll take ‘er back down to 1,600 the next day, leaving the river still way high.
Repeat: BEWARE THE TRINITY THIS WEEKEND AND NEXT WEEK. But if you want to know why Reclamation shooting this water downriver, you can go read about it at the Trinity River Restoration Program’s Flow FAQ. Basically, they send these pulses down the river in Spring to emulate the natural snowmelt you’d otherwise get on an undammed river, and which the ecosystem has come to expect.
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Here’s the latest schedule of release from Lewiston Dam between Thursday and next Wednesday.
Date | Time | From (cfs) | To (cfs) |
---|---|---|---|
4/21/2016 | 0200 | 300 | 400 |
4/21/2016 | 0400 | 400 | 500 |
4/21/2016 | 0600 | 500 | 700 |
4/21/2016 | 1400 | 700 | 600 |
4/21/2016 | 1800 | 600 | 550 |
4/21/2016 | 2200 | 550 | 500 |
4/25/2016 | 0000 | 500 | 750 |
4/25/2016 | 0200 | 750 | 1000 |
4/25/2016 | 0400 | 1000 | 1200 |
4/25/2016 | 1200 | 1200 | 1100 |
4/25/2016 | 1600 | 1100 | 1000 |
4/25/2016 | 2000 | 1000 | 900 |
4/26/2016 | 0000 | 900 | 800 |
4/26/2016 | 0600 | 800 | 1000 |
4/26/2016 | 1000 | 1000 | 1200 |
4/26/2016 | 1200 | 1200 | 1400 |
4/26/2016 | 1400 | 1400 | 1600 |
4/26/2016 | 1600 | 1600 | 1800 |
4/26/2016 | 1800 | 1800 | 2000 |
4/26/2016 | 2000 | 2000 | 2400 |
4/27/2016 | 0200 | 2400 | 2200 |
4/27/2016 | 0600 | 2200 | 2000 |
4/27/2016 | 1000 | 2000 | 1900 |
4/27/2016 | 1400 | 1900 | 1800 |
4/27/2016 | 1800 | 1800 | 1700 |
4/27/2016 | 2200 | 1700 | 1600 |