In late June our water level was very close to our normal level for this date. However we are now facing the beginning of the seasonal drawdown in lake levels.
As of June 25, all reservoir lakes had risen to be near normal levels for this time of year. But there is a significant drought occurring across the entire Trent Basin. Although there have been some exceptional rainfall events, they have tended to be quite localized to a few areas of the reservoirs and not impacting the Mississagua lakes chain. There is little local inflow to our lakes to balance the outflow. The dry conditions extend all the way south to the lower Trent River.
The Trent-Severn Waterway (TSW) water management team has already reduced the flow on the Otonabee River at Peterborough to its minimum level to conserve water system-wide. We are facing a situation quite like or more extreme than we did in 2016 when we experienced two months without significant rainfall.
Hence, as of this week, TSW has started a slow drawdown on all reservoirs. The Mississagua Dam will see log operations to begin a drawdown this week. The drawdown forecast is for our level to drop by 24 cms or about 10 inches over the next two weeks.
TSW has posted a Water Management Update today, and will also publish the first Drawdown Forecast for 2020. CEWF has posted a commentary and links to both documents on their website at CEWF.ca
The documents are also posted on the Parks Canada site.