High Water Postpones Boat Show
By Steve Vantreese, The Paducah Sun, Ky.
Apr. 9–GILBERTSVILLE, Ky. — — It seems an unlikely problem, but there’s too much water to hold a floating boat show.
The 2008 Spring In-Water Boat Show at Kentucky Dam Marina on swollen Kentucky Lake, scheduled Saturday and Sunday, has been postponed.
Tracy Stevens of Kentuckiana Yacht Sales said the already high level of Kentucky Lake and canal-linked Lake Barkley coupled with the prospect of even more water in the system from forecast stormy weather has scuttled the floating exhibition for the first time in the show’s 28-year history.
“We’re going to try to reschedule the show for the first weekend of May, but we’ll just have to see what happens,” Stevens said.
The big lakes were near 365 feet above sea level late Tuesday, already 6 feet above the summer pool of 359 feet that the reservoirs aren’t scheduled to reach by controlled fill until May 1.
Bill Arnwine of Tennessee Valley Authorities’ Water Control sector in Knoxville, Tenn., on Tuesday said the tentative plan is to run water through generators in Kentucky Dam at a pace to reduce the level as much as possible pending the arrival of more rainfall for the region and elsewhere in the Ohio, Tennessee and Cumberland river drainages.
“The Corps of Engineers office at Cincinnati is controlling what we do with Kentucky Dam right now,” Arnwine said. “We’re holding back as much water as we are to try to minimize flooding on the Ohio River.
“Depending on what rain we get through the system in the next few days, we could see the lakes go back up higher than they are now,” he said.
The TVA projected level for Kentucky Lake — matched by the Corps of Engineers for Lake Barkley — was to go from 365 feet to 364.5 feet by late tonight, then down to 364 feet by midnight Thursday. That decline was being driven only by water run through generation. No water was being released through gates in accord with the Corps’ dictate to minimize flooding on the Ohio, into which the Tennessee flows at Paducah.
Arnwine acknowledged that at the current level, some difficulties are being created with waters flooding the occasional campground, recreational areas and some agricultural acreage along Kentucky Lake.
He said, however, that Kentucky Lake historically has reached approximately 370 feet above sea level without major damage to private properties. He said TVA easement for maximum flooding capacity runs to the elevation of 375 feet above sea level.
Steve Vantreese can be contacted at 575-8684.
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