The pond near a Grand Traverse County dam will soon be lowered for safety reasons. The plan involves lowering the Brown Bridge Pond on the Boardman River by three and a half feet. Crews will begin lowering the water about two inches per day starting Monday.
By this time next month the water levels of the Brown Bridge Pond in Grand Traverse County will be about three in a half feet lower, city officials say the efforts are necessary to ensure the safety of the Brown Bridge Dam.
"The way it’s operating now we're afraid there’s going to be some erosion at the very bottom of the dam. The other reason is because of pressure against the embankment out at Brown Bridge thats causing some wet areas on the downstream side of the embankment," said Department of Public Services Ken Gregory.
Right now the plan is to decrease water levels by two inches a day.
" There's a couple of control gates and we just open up those a little bit more each day so that we are decreasing the pond."
Gregory says the city has been discussing on how to best manage the dam ever since the city took it over from Traverse City Light and Power a few years back.
"If there’s a big rain event…if we get a lot of rain on top of melting snow and frozen ground then the pond is going to have a large capacity and its going to be able to handle that without any threat of flooding downstream."
Gregory says recent reports of the dam show that the structure is perfectly safe. He says this is a proactive measure to make sure that it stays that way.
"Nothing is a 100 percent, but it's a very safe structure the way it is. The embankment currently is safe we're just making it safer."
Gregory says the decrease will be gradual and won't be noticeable. The newly exposed areas are considered fragile and unstable and people are encouraged to stay away from the area for at least two months.
If you have an opinion on what you would like to see happen with the Grand Traverse County dams, you can pick up a public opinion survey at the Department of Public Services located on Woodmere Avenue.
