The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Rock Island District have initiated a temporary modification to outflows this week at the Red Rock reservoir to preserve flood storage capacity.

Assistant Operations Manager Perry Thostenson tells KNIA/KRLS News this allows the Corps to identify any unknown impacts as it evaluates the modification as a permanent change to the reservoirs’ water control plans.

“The reason for that is to help preserve flood storage and to also avoid some larger outflows when we get into our higher lake levels,” he says.

Under the current water control plan during the growing season, normal flood operations release between 12,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) and a maximum of 18,000 cfs at Red Rock, which has been increased to 22,000 under the new plan. Thostenson says the change will increase downstream water levels approximately 1.2 feet.

“Right now, there’s plenty of channel capacity within the Des Moines River,” he says.

The temporary modification will be in effect during the 2016 growing season which began May 1 and continues through December 15, 2016.