By: Hollie Hojek
hhojek@kcautv.com
The Army Corp of Engineers is lowering water releases in Yankton South Dakota, in order to make repairs on the Gavin's Point Dam. But between this past summer's drought and lower releases, the city of Yankton is concerned about what will happen to its own water supply.
The problem actually dates back to the summer of 2011. The Missouri River Flooding caused a sand bar near the city's in-take pipe, preventing water from coming in to the plant. So in order to fix the problem, the city had to raise the pipes in the water. But, now that's causing some concern now that the river levels are running low.
"What you have, is it creates a vortex, and you start to suck air. And it air locks our pumps. So our concern is, are we going to have enough water coverage over our intakes to be able to pump water through the winter," said Kyle Goodmanson, environmental science director for the city of Yankton.
Right now the city only has about four feet of water covering it's intake pipe, which doesn't leave much breathing room, considering the Corp is expected to drop river levels another two feet.
"You go from 160,000 CFS (cubic feet per second) down to 12, so it's really tough to manage. You can't predict what the weather is going to do, the Corp's management somewhat changes so, it's kind of the unknown that makes it difficult to manage," said Goodmanson.
The City of Yankton says it has does have piping in place as a sort of "worse case scenario," back up plan, if the water levels get too low.
