Cannon Lover's Thread

[timmyc]

...

 

[Tin]

I find it hilarious that the hiking trails is intermediate....I find climbing that more challenging then half the trails over at Mitty

 

[dlague]

It is labelled as 3 but the map legend has not been updated.

Who are these people? First they name a trail TBD and they also didn't update the legend!

I fixed the legend.

 

[skiberg]

I am hearing that Cannon has MAJOR snowmaking issues. Apparently, when the dam was replaced, they had to release a bunch of water from Echo Lake. Unfortunately, it has been so darn dry since then that the lake is way below normal and they really don't have enough water to even mount any major snowmaking campaign. If true this could be an absolute disaster. Particularly if it stays warm and does not rain. Anyone else heard anything about this?

 

[Puck it]

Looks pretty full here. But this a while ago.

 

[skiberg]

I agree and it did not make sense to me as it looked fine a few weeks ago, but I heard it looked pretty low this past weekend and people were saying they are in trouble. Not even enough water for 10 days of snowmaking. That's why I am trying to figure out if anything to this.

 

[Puck it]

I agree and it did not make sense to me as it looked fine a few weeks ago, but I heard it looked pretty low this past weekend and people were saying they are in trouble. Not even enough water for 10 days of snowmaking. That's why I am trying to figure out if anything to this.

It looked fine when we were going by for the Simmer and Brew.

 

[Domeskier]

I'm not sure how I feel about people swimming in the snowmaking water.

 

[Puck it]

I'm not sure how I feel about people swimming in the snowmaking water.

The pump impeller will take care of them.

 

[wtcobb]

The pump impeller will take care of them.

Here I thought the pink snow was due to algae.

 

[mbedle]

Quick look at rainfall totals and they are not far off from last year. When was the dam rebuilt? Also, I looked at the draft permit for the additional withdrawal they requested for Mittersill and they seem to be under some very tight withdrawal limits. In the past during snowmaking, there were times when the outflow of the lake was zero, with the water level going below the dam outfall. It looks like now that will not be allow and once the outfall reaches a minimum amount, they have 4 hours to stop snowmaking operations.

Didn't we have this discussion before, earlier in this post? Kind of remember looking into Echo Lake before.

 

[SIKSKIER]

Rainfall does not effect the level of Echo Lake.It is spring fed and almost never varies more than a foot.I'll be there this weekend and give an update.

 

[mbedle]

Rainfall does not effect the level of Echo Lake.It is spring fed and almost never varies more than a foot.I'll be there this weekend and give an update.

Actually, the inflow into the lake varies between 1 mgd to 1.7 mgd and spring output can vary based on precipitation. You are correct that the level at the lake will not vary much during non-snowmaking periods (water in = water out - evaporation). But it does vary a lot during snowmaking/the winter with a maximum drop in lake level at 2.95 feet in 2014/2015. I think the issue is during dam replacement, they must have had to lower the lake level significantly and once the dam was done, has the lake recovered to a level the reaches the dam's spillway. For example, if they dropped the lake level 5 feet to complete the repairs/replacement, that is a total loss of approximately 56 million gallons. With an inflow of say 1.25 mgd on average, it would take around 45 days to refill. Again, I don't know when any of this work was done or how far they actually dropped the water level. As far as precipitation, that will help to refill the lake, with 1-inch of rain equal to about 1 million gallons. Also keep in mine that the old dam had 2 stop logs ontop of the spillway. This allow Cannon to increase the depth of the lake just prior to the snowmaking season. Not sure if they will still be used. I think the permit mentions that they can start to increase the height of the lake after October 15 each year and must remove them after the season, before spawning and fishing starts.

 

[skiberg]

What are you a hydrologist?

 

[mbedle]

What are you a hydrologist?

LOL A geologist, but work in the environmental consulting field. Spent the early part of my career developing new public water supplies and monitoring mine dewatering influences on private and public water supplies. Most of the numbers above were contained in the draft permit application.

 

[SIKSKIER]

mbedle,appreciate you motivating me to search out those documents.What I found was the draft but the numbers you refer to are the same.I didn't realize the volume of water taken had doubled in 7 years.It was always my understanding back then that the surface water never varied more than 6-12 inches.It looks like that was probably the case but I see that can certainly be much higher now.Cannon is was asking for a 30% increase for the Mittersill withdrawal which necessated the higher dam level.It looks like the monitoring of minimum outflow will be the limitation for withdrawal for snowmaking.Interesting read here if anybody wants.
Note:The first maybe 1/5 of this report is about DES authority and the like.
http://des.nh.gov/organization/divisions/water/wmb/section401/documents/draft-wqc-2013-404p-001.pdf
.

 

[skiberg]

First, that is not an interesting read. Good god. Second, what the heck does all of this mean? Is there an issue with withdrawal of water? I still can figure it out.

It sounds like they had to increase capacity in order to do the Mitt. project. In order to do that they had to rebuild the dam. When they rebuilt, they increased capacity to meet the needs of the Mitt project.

So where are we now? did the build work? Is the water there? If not why?

 

[Puck it]

Looking at google earth, it does look like they had to lower the level down. It shows the construction a little earlier than the pic above.

 

[Puck it]

Pic of lake

 

[SIKSKIER]

Hey,thanks Puck!I had not realized that they finally have new GE images of Cannon.The res on the old one was terrible.