While many people experienced flooding in area lakes this week, the opposite happened in Nageek lake near Combermere.
Lake residents were alarmed to find a drastic drop in water levels Wednesday.
We spoke with longtime resident Ernie Coulas who explained that Ontario Power Generation, who manages the Palmer Dam, would have been trying to keep the lake from overflowing and that managing water levels can be a tricky balancing act.
The Palmer Dam manages levels for what is called ‘The Kaminiskeg Reach” which includes Negeek Lake and Kaminiskeg Lake.
As a result of the sudden drop, Coulas said some lake residents experienced property damage, such as boat motors being suddenly beached and pumps burning out from running without water.
Coulas suggested a notification system for residents ahead of any significant water management changes would help avoid damage like this in the future.
“A great thing to have would be some sort of warning system, notification system like they have for hydro outages.” suggested Coulas. “They knew they were going to open the dam to make room for this water coming up out of Algonquin Park. If people were notified, then they could prepare for that, maybe push their boat out to deeper water, turn off the electricity on their pump.”
Coulas said that with the fine balancing act of managing water levels, the shallow water was possibly less damaging than flooding would have been, had they left the water in this area at normal levels.
He said, as of Thursday morning, the water levels have almost returned to normal in Nageek Lake.