A canoe trip open to the public will be held 10 a.m. at Crescent Bay Lake. Registration is at Spring Canyon Ranger Station at 9:40 a.m. (509-754-7889)
Category Archives: Boating, swimming and fishing
Info to help you find your way around our lakes
Adding fish to Banks Lake
One of the reasons Banks Lake is one of the best fishing spots in the state has to do with volunteers, and a little known group called POWER, the Promoters of Widlife and Environmental Resources.
The group raises young fish in net pens in Electric City each year, releasing them into the lake.
The video clip below is of them getting ready to release 150,000 rainbow trout today, Saturday, June 6, 2015, when they had a little help from five members of the Wenatchee Fishermen’s club.
Triple Fish Challenge is here!
Lake level held down for maintenance on dam
Lake Roosevelt is being held at a level about 47 feet below the full mark while maintnenace is completed on the drum gates that hold the water back when the lake is full.
The Bureau of Reclamation, which operates Grand Coulee Dam, reports the lake will likely remain below 1,255 feet above sea level until May 10.
The water forecast for the Columbia River drainage above Grand Coulee Dam, from April to August this year, is estimated to 82.5 percent of normal, so the maximum level allowed for flood control right now would actually be 1,283.3 feet, less than 7 feet below spilling over.
But such flood control elevations are the maximum elevations allowed to ensure enough room in the lake for the spring runoff. Actual elevations may be lower “based on power demand, unforeseen power emergencies, changes in weather events, maintenance on the dam, etc,” the bureau explains on its website.
Army Corps to lower water level at Rufus Woods April 11-12
SEATTLE – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is lowering the reservoir water level upstream of Chief Joseph Dam by 1.5-2.5 feet below normal pool this weekend, but the Seaton’s Grove boat launch will remain open.
Water managers expect that work scheduled for April 11-12, to prepare for a bank stabilization project, will lower Lake Rufus Woods from its normal low-pool level of 950 feet above sea level to a lower elevation between 947.5-948.5 feet.
The project will eventually address erosion problems by placing bank-stabilizing rock armor and native plantings along 700 feet of shoreline on the Columbia River’s northeastern bank downstream of Seaton’s Grove boat ramp.
To prepare the site for construction, the waterline is being lowered this weekend for an inspection of conditions, and to remove vegetation and other obstructions that could impact bank protection integrity.
Water levels are expected to return to normal April 13.
A Corps spokesman said he didn’t know when the actual construction work would take place or how long it would take.
When complete, the structure will provide protection against reservoir erosive forces, the Corps stated in a press release Friday.
The Corps said that throughout the planning process it coordinated with the Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Reclamation, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Washington Department of Ecology, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife.