Wallenpaupack spill draws criticism of PPL

Corporation to change its communications procedure

By CHARLIE BUTERBAUGH

ROWLAND, PA — It was 7:00 a.m. on April 3 when the firemen knocked on Joan Searle’s door. She had been up all night, keeping watch over the ankle-deep water in her kitchen and weather forecasts online.

The Lackawaxen River, which runs behind the house that’s been in Searle’s family since 1928, had already overcome the deck she rebuilt after last year’s flood on September 18. The river was slapping against the first-floor windowsills.

The firemen told her PPL had opened its emergency floodgates at the Lake Wallenpaupack dam. The Lackawaxen—fed by Wallenpaupack Creek—would continue rising, possibly six more feet.

“It was horrible. We couldn’t warn people because they [PPL] didn’t warn us,” Searle said.

Three weeks later, faced with the costs of major structural damage at her house along Route 590, Searle is asking why this spring has been so different from others. She wonders why PPL seems to have failed to anticipate the heavy rains and melting snow that combined to fill Lake Wallenpaupack and force maximum water releases through the dam’s emergency spillway gates, which caused the Lackawaxen to further exceed its flood stage.

“It happens every year. We have snow thaws and rain. Why wouldn’t you make room for that in the lake?” Searle asked.

The spill from the lake ultimately added between three and six inches in height to the Upper Delaware River, said Clarke Rupert, communications officer at the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC). Citing what he referred to as conservative numbers, Rupert said Hawley, PA, which is located on the Lackawaxen River above the mouth of the Wallenpaupack Creek, received about 5.5 inches of rain from the two major storm events between March 28 and April 3.

“On top of that it would appear there was another five inches equivalent stored in the snow pack,” Rupert said, which caused 10 inches or more of water to run into Lake Wallenpaupack within a span of 10 days.

“The rise in the lake was so swift from the combination of rain and snow melt, which was a critical factor here,” Rupert said.

The scenario was similar to the one that led to the flood of record in 1955, when two hurricanes, Connie and Dianne, hit the Delaware River Valley within one week.

Rupert said the March 28 storm filled about 14 billion gallons of storage space in the lake.

The above circumstances should have caused PPL to question whether or not to “release water before meeting the magic mark,” said Julia Crowder, manager of The Inn at the Old Mill Stream. One week after the April 3 flood, Crowder stood looking over damages wrought at the inn, which sits on a bluff above Wallenpaupack Creek, about one and a half miles below the dam.

“How did they let themselves get to the position where they had to let that amount of water out in that short of time?” Crowder asked.

Between 12:00 noon and 8:00 p.m. on April 3, she said a tidal wave was rushing through the creek. For about 13 hours that day, PPL released water at a maximum rate of 8,000 cubic feet per second (cfs).

The raging creek eroded a ledge and knocked the pilings out from under the inn’s deck, which eventually collapsed. It scoured rocks away from the inn’s foundation, washing a mass of debris that now crowds the streambed before it meets the Lackawaxen.

If PPL has the capacity to control flooding along the streams fed by Lake Wallenpaupack, many are wondering why it can’t.

“My honest opinion is the reservoir people did a lousy job,” said Corkey Roberto, owner of Corkey’s Country Kitchen, located about two miles downstream from Searle’s house.

“They could have let the water out prior to the rain coming. There was a lack of knowledge and forethought. It’s a screwed up situation.”

One of PPL’s main arguments to the contrary is the fact that the lake does control flooding to an extent. Gary Petrewski, a senior engineer at PPL, said the lake absorbed about 20,000 cfs prior to the April 3 spill and prevented the Lackawaxen from rising four to five additional feet.

However, anticipating major storm events and releasing water to pre-empt potential flooding is another matter.

“We couldn’t do it,” Petrewski said. “There is a multi-million dollar recreation industry that’s on the lake. It relies on summer lake levels. We can’t turn this lake into a flood control reservoir.”

Further, he said, weather forecasts are not always accurate.

“We have a staff meteorologist. Our data indicated early in the week that the rainfall was going to be more easterly,” Petrewski said. “Early in the week it didn’t appear we were going to have much rain at all.”

In addition to criticism of PPL’s decision to release a maximum amount of water early in the morning of April 3, emergency management officials have found fault in the energy corporation’s communication of its decision.

Pike County Emergency Response Coordinator Roger Maltby said it was not until 3:20 a.m. that he was awakened by a call from PPL dam operators, alerting him that the lake’s floodgates had already been open for a half-hour.

“That’s what irritated me and my counterpart in Wayne County,” Maltby said, referring to PPL’s after-the-fact communication. He said he called Wayne County’s emergency response coordinator, who hadn’t heard about the releases.

“It was a mad scurry to get everyone on the phone and make sure they knew,” Maltby said. That included calling the National Weather Service, which was issuing specifics on flood warnings throughout the Northeast. “They were included because I brought them in,” Maltby said. “We had to do everything in a hurry.”

In response, changes are in the works regarding PPL’s communications.

“We’ll be changing our procedure to directly notify Wayne and Pike County emergency management agencies, the Delaware River Master and the National Weather Service,” said Petrewski.

“We’re just trying to clean things up.” However, he said, “Nothing will affect how we operate the gates.”