Missouri River Hits Low Stage Level Mark: Dip Spurs Kansas City to Act to Ensure Adequate Water Supplies.

By Bill Graham, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Jan. 19–The Missouri River on Thursday dipped to a record low stage level at Kansas City, prompting the area’s largest water utility to switch to auxiliary intake pumps.

Low winter flows became even lower when an ice dam formed last weekend upstream of Sioux City, Iowa. Also, tributaries froze when temperatures plummeted, cutting inflow to the river.

The ice dam has since broken, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is releasing additional water from a dam in South Dakota. But that water won’t start arriving until today.

So the Kansas City Water Services Department turned on its auxiliary pumps about 1 p.m. Thursday to ensure that customers had adequate water supplies, said Frank Pogge, department director. Auxiliary pumps and wells can provide up to 158 million gallons of water a day, Pogge said, more than the 105 million gallons typically used on a winter day.

The Missouri River dropped to a 3.30-feet stage level at the Hannibal Bridge at 12:15 p.m., said Steve Predmore, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill. Forecasters said the river could drop to a stage level as low as 3.0 or 3.1 feet by 6 a.m. today, Predmore said. Afterward, the river is predicted to rise.

The old record was 3.65 feet, set in December 2005. Stage height is not water depth, but rather the elevation of the water surface compared with a fixed point on the bridge.

Utilities are experiencing problems because downward erosion of the channel bed, which is unique to Kansas City, is causing water elevations to be far lower than planned when intakes and discharge pipes were built.

For example, the record low flow for the Missouri River at Kansas City was 4,240 cubic feet of water per second in December 1963, Predmore said. The stage reading that day was 7.3 feet.

On Thursday, when the stage reading was 3.3 feet, U.S. Geological Survey equipment showed the water flow at 18,700 cubic feet per second.

To reach Bill Graham, call (816) 234-5906 or send e-mail to bgraham@kcstar.com.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

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