Full Tanks

With the leaves turning colour and freshness permeating the morning air, you know winter is not far away. It’s comforting to know that on the cold days ahead will we have sufficient water to operate our turbines, old and new. All our reservoirs, or ‘tanks’ are full. Click on the links below to see water level charts for each lake.

Aishihik Lake: High snow pack last winter and high rainfall this summer has resulted in water levels rebounding a great deal this year. Even with having to operate the Aishihik hydro plant for most of the summer due to the shutdown of Mayo A, the lake is at near full supply level. 

Marsh Lake: The water levels have gone from low supply right up to near full supply. Contrary to what you might think, our rainy summer didn’t really contribute to that. Summer precipitation is only one component that makes up the annual inflow, snowfall and glacial melt being the other two. What did help was that we closed some of the Marsh Lake control structure gates once our license allowed us to do so (mid-August) and that meant we were able to store enough water to reach our Full Supply Level.

Mayo Lake: This past spring we saw Mayo Lake at low levels not seen in over 25 years. Through a combination of careful management of the reservoirs, summer rain, and the prolonged shutdown of the hydro plant because of our work on the Mayo B project, the lake level went from low supply level right over the full supply level.