Valley reservoirs are able to contain record rains

One agency told Girard to watch its fragile dam.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
YOUNGSTOWN -- A lot more damage could be caused by the unusually heavy rainfall if not for flood-control reservoirs.
"It would be a lot worse," Werner Loehlein, chief of the water management section of the Army Corps of Engineers in Pittsburgh, said of the recent flooding.
Loehlein also said Wednesday that federally operated reservoirs in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys are nowhere close to being filled.
For example, Berlin and Milton reservoirs are about half-full, while Kirwan Reservoir has 31 percent of capacity remaining before water spills over the dam.
Mosquito is 40 percent full, and the Shenango River Dam at Sharpsville, Pa., is at 26 percent of capacity.
Although the Lower Girard Lake Dam is the most fragile structure in the area, the Corps doesn't maintain the levels because it's owned by the city of Girard and wasn't designed for flood control.
"I've advised them [Girard] that if they see water coming out where it shouldn't, they should be concerned," said Kathleen J. Anderson, a Corps' project manager.
Inadequacy
The Corps has told the city the aged concrete structure needs to be repaired or replaced. Since the rain began Monday, water has been draining over the spillway.
Anderson said the city has been trying to lower the water level to reduce pressure on the dam. The discharge system is inadequate and can't keep up with the rainfall.
"It is structurally unstable," Anderson said.
Girard Mayor James A. Melfi, who has called for the breaching of the dam, said there is nothing he can do except continue the effort to breach it.
Loehlein said, "We've stored quite a bit of water but still have a lot of space."
The available capacity is generally measured from the top of a spillway to the top of a dam.
Water levels
The Mahoning River at Leavittsburg, which has experienced flooding, is receding, Loehlein said.
He pointed out that the river flood stage is 10 feet with a normal level of 4 feet. The river crested at 17.2 feet at 2 a.m. Wednesday and fell to 15.9 feet in 12 hours.
Loehlein said that the highest the river has risen in Leavittsburg was March 26, 1913. The National Geological Survey reported the river at 24 feet. At that time, there was no gauge to measure the water level there.
If not for flood-control, he asserted, the river level at Leavittsburg would not range between 20 and 24 feet.
No water will be released from Mosquito until the river falls below 10 feet.
The normal level of 10 feet in Youngstown had risen to 17.5 feet by 7 a.m. Wednesday, having fallen to 17.2 feet over the next five hours.
One of the problems, Loehlein explained, is that a flood-control reservoir can't be constructed everywhere. Rain also falls downstream, so it can't be collected by the reservoirs.
yovich@vindy.com