¶ Welcome & Lake Level Anticipation
If you guys remember, I guess it was back in february seventh that released a podcast with Brian Lipscomb, who's the CEO of Energy Keepers. A lot of people liked that podcast. In fact, it it became one of our most viewed podcasts that we've done. It got way into the thousands of views, so We're glad that you liked it and we're glad that I also got a lot of really good emails from people saying that it was very informative of it and it answered the questions they were looking for and all that.
But Brian said, you know, we should revisit this later in March, early April, somewhere around there and talk about it. Again. And as we get closer into spring, of course, uh, Flathead Lake, a lot of you are wondering, All right, are we okay? Or am I gonna have enough water to keep my boat by my dock? So we're gonna try to Get those questions answered for ya or best we can. Also kinda see what the water situation is with snowpack and everything else. That's next.
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¶ Guest Introduction & Role Explained
Thank you very much, Roger. I am so glad that we're able to revisit this topic again. Real quick before I bring my very special guest in here, I want to mention a few groups that are with us, one of which is doing some very dangerous and heavy lifting right now. And that is our active military members. As I understand it, some of you out there are out at sea, but are still able to get this podcast.
And many others are at bases all over the place, around the world. Uh and we all know what you're up to. Uh we're seeing it on the news and we're praying for ya. And um we just want you to know thank you. Special folks. You loved. You missed. Be safe out there. Also want to give a big thank you to our veterans. all across Montana and well anywhere you're listening or watching. Thank you for your service. means a great deal to all of us.
And for all the rest of you out there that are watching, hey, glad you're here. Real quick, I just wanted to let you know if you would please like Share and subscribe this podcast. a ton also uh when you subscribe you get that little notification that says uh hey new podcast is available it's kind of nice so if you would please do those things subscribe like and share
We'd love it. And so I wanna bring on uh with us this time is Eve James. She's the director of asset optimization. We'll find out what all that means here in a second. She is obviously with Energy Keepers who owns and operates the dam. She's gonna fill in for Brian and give us a a lot of great information about the whole water situation going on there. Which by the way, Eve, welcome ver to the the program. Thanks for for doing this.
I think one of the reasons we got so many people uh that watch it is Flathead Lake affects a lot more than just the area around the Flathead Valley. I mean, it kind of affects all the way through the Columbia River basin, doesn't it?
Yeah, thanks for having me on, Dale. I'm happy to to provide an update for folks.
What is director of optimization? What is that?
Yeah, so I basically I help do the water management piece for this facility and then do regional coordination with uh our partners upstream and downstream of us all the way down to the ocean.
¶ Eve's Journey in Water Management
Mm-hmm. Well let's learn a little bit more about you and how you got involved in working for Energy Keepers. I think such a fascinating business, especially Uh this dam, i it's very unique in its ownership and what was wonderful last time was Brian really spent a lot of time giving us uh just an incredible history. of the dam and really the fact that the tribes were the first in the nation, the Salish and Kutney tribes, to put in their own constitution, which is really what facilitated
the fact that they later could become the owners of the dam. But Brian did just did a great job of giving history, but let's learn about you and how you got involved.
I grew up in Billings, Montana, and I spent my childhood summers up on Flathead Lake camp and I even worked there a few summers as I went to the University of Montana to study geology. Then I went to graduate school at Portland State University, specializing in hydrogeology and water management. While I was finishing my degree there, I entered the utility industry when I accepted a position at the utility called Pacific Corps out here.
in Portland to model and manage their hydro operations. And then after gaining experience, I was able to pursue an opportunity at the Bonneville Power Administration. that manages the Federal Columbia River Power System. I worked there for sixteen years in various roles managing and coordinating the challenging hydro operations.
And then I was excited to return to Montata my Montana roots and join Energy Keepers in twenty twenty two to work with this beautiful resource and learn the independent power producer side of the utility industry. So I'm really excited to be joining your podcast and answering your questions.
¶ Unusual Winter Conditions Analysis
I mentioned earlier that Brian had said. I'll quote him here. I I'm starting to feel like a broken record because every time I I go to talk to somebody, I say, We just dealt with something we have never seen in our lifetime. So is that still happening, Eve? Or are you guys still dealing with things that you just have never dealt with before in this industry?
Yeah, it's it's been a really weird winter. I would say uh since Brian's podcast is probably a little bit more predictable until about mid-March. Then we started getting warm, wet weather again. So this March we've had precipitation nearly 175% of normal. Let me share with you some of the graphics. That Brian had shared with you, but I've updated them this morning with her
Perfect.
Okay, perfect.
There we are.
Oh, there we go. Yeah, so this is the water supply inflow into the project. that Brian had shown for January. We were at thirty nine percent of normal, but you still see that our inflow into the lake was above average. Those green dots are what marks the average for the inflows into the lake. That was because Hungry Horse was drafting out. We started drafting out some flows. February, we got less than 70% on normal precipitation, but we still had slightly higher than normal flows.
as that water was moving through the system. And then March hit and mid-March we got about 175% of normal precipitation. So you see another big increase of inflows into the lake.
Well that had to help, I would think, then.
Unfortunately, this is kind of the winter of high temperatures causing problems. So the impact of temperatures when this has been happening, if you look at this. these pairs of graphics on the left you're gonna see the monthly precipitation for that m particular month. And then on the right side is the temperature. for that month and this is of the Columbia Basin. So we're looking specifically for our project in this red kind of circled area.
OK
The basins that impact the inflows into the lake. Much deep December, very wet. Very warm. And then if you go into January, you see that very red, very dry on the left. You also see that very red on the right because it was warm. Say with February. And then in March you see again these very wet precipitation events ca happening, but they're happening with pretty warm temperatures. So instead of snow building, we're impacting our snow pack quite a bit.
Okay, so we're getting more moisture but we're also bringing snowpack down kinda early then.
Right. Right. So you're gonna see that on this graphic shows this black line is the twenty twenty six snowpack. Where it was building kind of normally till we hit January where it really dried out. Yeah. And then so you see it just kind of flatlighted. So we've had a few wet events that have helped bump it up. Um a little bit, but because of how warm it is, it's it's just really
been impactful. We've seen early runoff flow start in March in the historical record. So it's not quite as unprecedented as that event we saw in December. But it's definitely warmer than we were hoping to see for the rest of the
¶ Flathead Lake Management Strategy
So what is that then telling you as far as what it's gonna look like for water levels on the lake? Do you have a kind of a educated guess at this point or?
Yeah, so you'll see that we the lake levels going through the winter, of course, we almost we filled during that December event and we're we were drafting out. We had a pretty good draft rate going through February into March. And then we just hit that head that warm wet weather, which then again started the inflows into the lake coming in higher than we've been fully loaded basically since December. But we're because of that natural dam that
Brian had talked about, you'll see that our inflows were picking up higher than what our outflows are. So we're we're starting to fill that fill into that space.
So
Go ahead.
Wha what does that mean then as far as Will will we see levels start to drop if we don't continue this this kind of moisture into the to the summer because we're losing our snowpack early?
The US Army Corps of Engineers is the federal agency that manages like the system and and local flood risk requirements. So we'll coordinate with them and we always coordinate in season to adapt to conditions as they occur to meet the needed requirements.
of what the flood risk is, but they're also very sensitive to the need for the reservoirs to refill as well. So it's always kind of an awkward act between leaving enough space for flood risk management, but capturing refill if the snowpack isn't what we hope it is, but also you know, a couple of springs ago, like in twenty twenty two, June had a pretty big atmospheric river event that came in at the end of spring too. So the core is always kind of juggling those different those different needs.
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¶ Seasonal Outlook & El Niño's Impact
Superior Hardwoods of Montana. Go see'em. I I guess w one of the things Brian had talked about is he explained that n the demands that get put on Flathead Lake to hold back or you know, m make sure that you you're not dumping too much into the system. Have you heard reports as far as down below? Are they Are are they getting too much or not enough water? Do you know?
I don't we haven't had any any major flood risk issues on the system since that December event. That that's the problem we're seeing with those temperatures that I was showing is that it seems like the runoff is starting to hit earlier this year. And so if we don't get more precipitation events in in April and May to help support That refill effort and the snow pack. Because the snowpack is kind of on the low side, that is a concern.
Okay. And so what you're showing us is it any better, worse for hungry horse above flathead at all?
A hungry horse is in a similar similar situation where it was they had that warm wet event as well, but there's there's still quite a bit of snowpack diminishing, so there's always concern about that. But they manage their their flood risk. Uh requirements will be managed to if the snowpack drops off then
reservoir space for for flood risk management, that type of thing. They do have downstream fisheries requirements. Those usually get set during off the May official forecast, so that won't be set until early May.
But so do you have a overall any kind of a forecast for water levels for this summer yet, or is it too early to to look at what water levels might be for Flathead Lake this summer?
As the season progresses, we're looking at the seasonal outlooks. We're still showing a little bit above average potential for April in terms of precipitation outlook. Still showing those warm temperatures, unfortunately. And we're starting to transition into an El Nino year. So the seasonal precipitation outlook for the April, May, June is kind of showing that below. Normal above normal temperatures. Um so as we go into that, we're definitely watching watching that. And this is an impact.
region wide. Uh the warm winter has impacted across all of the West. The lack of snowpack's gonna have a huge water supply impact. Um, which can lead to low hydropower generation this summer. So if we have any big region wide
¶ Detailed Lake Level Projections
heat wave event, there's gonna be, you know, few few basins that are available to to help support that. So there could be demands, power demands that impact the lake levels. This is the most recent forecast that we put out today. This time of year we put them out typically about monthly. As we get closer to the summer and the uncertainty in what our inflows, spring inflows and runoff are gonna be, we start putting them out weekly for folks.
Yeah. Yeah.
Just to kind of get folks oriented if they remember from Brian's podcast, the left side of the graphic is the actual data from starting October first, which is the start of the water year through today. And the black dashed line is the lake elevations, the blue line is the inflow into the project, and then the orange line is what the project outflow is.
So you can see the big inflow spike we had in December causing the lake to fill. And then again that it was like March 19th, we started getting warm, wet weather again, and the inflow spiked again, causing the lake levels to rise. And then so projecting out we still have really wide uncertainty and this blue band is kind of the
low to high stream flow cases we're seeing. We look at a uh you know, an ensemble of stream flow predictions when we're looking out into the future'cause there's so much weather uncertainty. Um So when we model that, we see kind of a pretty big difference in what potential outcomes can be. And some of that's driven by, you know, how we the flood risk management requirements get put on the project and how inflows Um how quickly or early the inflows come off.
that sort of thing. So we still think we have enough water to hopefully refill the lake by mid June as as anticipated. But going into to May it will be really critical that we start we see some precipitation in May to help
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¶ Public Info, Recreation & Conclusion
Now let's get back to what Rocky Mountain truck and trailer helped create the podcast. Correct me if I'm wrong that the more we can kind of stay in La Nina or Pre El Nino the the better then I would say.
Ja.
Is that what I'm Reading properly here.
Yeah. It looks like that the seasonal forecasts though are to to be changing into an El Nino condition. And even with the La Nina we were s having this winter, the the temperatures have still been quite above above normal, even though typical in a law nine yeah you get kind of cooler wetter conditions. We haven't seen the cooler part of that. Show up, unfortunately.
Ok. So right now folks we just cross our fingers and And hope it does. This information i i is excellent. And and br like you were saying in the in the podcast that Brian did with me, he he shared a lot of this information to Where do folks go to get this information? I if I recall right, we can get most all of that right there on the Energy Keepers website, correct?
www.energyeepersinc.com. We have a a menu called Flathead Lake Level that you can click on and you'll see the most recent forecast on top and you can scroll down and see the older forecast. They get posted there. We also have updates on a Facebook page that you can subscribe to and get notifications that when we post updates on that.
Well, in the podcast description then, folks, for those of you viewing us right now, what we'll do is in the podcast description, I'll put a link. to the energy keeper site as well as the Facebook site. And then that's a great idea to go ahead and subscribe so that you you get those alerts. All right. As far as anything else, Eve, that that you can bring us up to date from last time that we talked to Brian, anything that you feel that would be interesting and no noteworthy to share with us?
to point out to folks that the lake, even though it's it's much higher than it normally is this time of year, it's most likely reached its lowest elevation and we will either kinda hold or slow fill throughout April, kinda depending on flood risk management needs, of course. So some of the stream flow forecasts are showing that early runoff and refill trajectory. So any shoreline work you might be completing or dock work or or whatever, do that sooner than later if you need lower elevations. So
Now would be the time, folks. We've been talking with Cindy at that runs the Mac Days tournament which is going on right now over there throughout Flathead Lake and so far there's been decent enough water, you know, to be able to get boats in and out during that that fishing tournament over in Blue Bay and and that sort of thing. I don't really anticipate Too many problems there, anything. You see coming on the horizon that might affect getting boats in and out of the water?
Yeah, not all of them. But there's there's a oh quite a few public boat ramps that go down all the way to, you know, twenty eight eighty three. So you can always get boats into the water is just some of those dock and shoreline structures, private structures that
Yeah. I think the biggest concern usually is that, you know, just as we get further in because I think most everybody's used to lower levels this time of year, but as it fills, will it fill and then will it stay? in that recreation level throughout the summer. And of course, right now we're just we don't know yet.
Right.
Yeah,'cause that w what was it? T there there was problems during the the actual boating season that that we just didn't have enough water in the lake. I can't remember when that was.
Yeah, yeah. In twenty twenty three the lake sagged as we were supporting downstream fisheries flows. And the inflows into the lake were much lower than the outflows for that.
My inbox on my email got pretty thick during that time. You know, people know and I can't even imagine what yours must have been.
Yeah.
I I think this this wetter March or towards middle to that of March ha I I would assume helped some if but it would have been nice to keep it a lot colder and holds more than
Ha ha
We'll take one weekend.
Absolutely. So now we'll just see where it goes and and you know, maybe we have a wetter than normal May and June or something like that that could help us out. So
That'd be great.
I appreciate this update. It this this really helps us because we're always trying to keep folks, you know, ahead of the uh the curve on some of that stuff. And again, if you folks go to the podcast description you're gonna get those links and then also on Montanaoutdoor dot com we do try to Keep that updated and get you those flows. If you've if you look on MontanaOutdoor dot com, which is our site, which is very popular, we do have the river flows pretty much around the state that kind of
track across the top of the website. So keep an eye on that too and hopefully that should get of everything. All right, Eve, anything else before I let you go? I I know you got plenty of things to do, so
Thanks for having me, Dale.
You bet. You bet.
That was good.
All right. Thanks, Eve. Well there you have it, folks. Eve James giving us the information that you guys have wanted. This'll give you some pretty good ideas, and you know, feel free to email me and and we'll just try to keep you posted as we go along until we talk again, folks. Be careful out there, be good to each other, and we'll see you next time on the Montana Outdoor Podcast.
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