Current river temperature, 63°.
Current river level 10.71 at latham
6.82 at riverside bridge.
4.82 at Auburn street.
2.23 at Fordham dam.
I’d like to do a brief fordham dam 101 information post.
The dam was originally built over a 100 years ago.
Back in the mid-seventies com Ed did a major construction project to install the 4 hydraulic gates in the center of the dam.
Ironically, this coincided about the time they were going to be doing the byron nuclear plant downstream.
Before the gates were installed, the run of the river dam resembled the spillover dam town in Oregon.
To create more water for boating, they would put splashboards on the top of our old dam, to create more of a pool in the summertime, for boating up in the machesney and Roscoe area.
This was a very labor intense project that would need to be done almost every year.
As ice or trees would slam into the boards, they would rip off. And constantly need replacement.
During construction of the new dam, a 12 inch cap was added to the top of the existing dam.
The addition of the gates allowed for adjustment during high flow conditions to mimic the old dam.
This also created a larger recreational pool for our community to thrive on.
For those of us who’ve been around more than twenty years on the river, we are very much aware that adjustments were not necessarily made as timely as local residents wanted them to during high flow events.
The homeowners association went through a learning curve for measuring water level at the dam.
I dealt with Paul calligan for a decade. And there was never one time that when I asked what the water level at the dam was, he always replied saying 2.5
My first method of checking was to climb out on the spillway, with a yardstick Pole, an add inches over the top to the height of the spillway to come up with a rough guess of how much above 2.5 we were at that time.
The homeowners association then paid to have a survey benchmark on the seawall at davis park.
To save me from using a tape measure to measure down, we had a static gage made that we mounted to coincide with that benchmark.
I would go round and round with Paul. About them having the water too high based on our survey and benchmark.
In the old days, there was no such thing as proactive at our dam.
The homeowners association knew that a USGS gauge at the dam was the only way everyone would truly know what water level was being held at on a daily basis.
Of course I was the one who wanted it the most because I got tired of driving down there every single day with my tape measure.
We were able to raise $15000 in private. Donations from businesses, river users and river homeowners for everyone to know what water levels were being run at.
As luck would have it right before the gauge came online, paul was able to retire after a long career with com ed.
I then started over with george gullrapp as my new point contact for discussions with water levels at the dam.
Some of you may remember a website called broken dam rockford.com
I’ll never forget that day.I got a call from george saying he just got out of a two hour meeting because of me.
He said it was all about that Website that I created.
Anyone who knows me knows, I’m not a computer guy. I am just an information guy.
I did provide information to the website.I informed george.
I asked if there was anything on there that was not true. I could make sure it was taken down instantly.
This website was the driving factor for the undisclosed $ amount of repair and updates that were done to the dam.
The hydraulics we’re not working well on 2 of the gates and a new system of cables and electric motors was engineered to replace and update the two gates.
Those would be the large silver structures that you see down at the dam now.
They were actually flown into place with a helicopter because of the limited access to the dam.
This was completed in 2018.
There is a gentleman that has a blurry letter on com ed letterhead that is being posted and misrepresented.
What the letter says is the procedural chain of command between the sheriff’s department and com ed for making gate adjustment recommendations.
Sheriff gary caruana came to one of our board meetings before he was elected and said, what an asset we have with the rock river, and he would do everything he could to help us manage river levels in a proactive way to help winnebago county, but not in a detrimental way to hurt ogle county.
Gary is a man of his word and has done nothing but work hand in hand with our association and com ed to this day to fulfill that campaign promise.
For those who attended our board meeting last tuesday there was information shared by scott lincoln the chief hydrologist from our local NWS
That in fact since 2019 data is showing that is exactly what has been happening on a regular basis.
Our association works hand in hand providing the sheriff with daily updates on river levels and suggestions for adjustments to the gates that day.
I can’t tell you what a night and day difference the current administration has addressing these adjustments in a timely manner.
Unless you are around in the old days before gary, you would not know how great a job is being done.
I know it is impossible to make everyone happy.
People who are struggling with homes that have basements that are used as living space or where their furnace and hot water heater is located and are stressed beyond belief right now trying to keep the water out.
Many homes we’re just fishing shacks when they were built on the river 80 years ago.
For the last 40 plus years, homes are not allowed to be built unless they are above the 100 year flood plane benchmark.
We all remember the flood of 2008 and 2019.
While those hit the major flood stage mark, they were classified as 30 year floods.
The flood of 1959 1975 2008 and 2019 well extremely devastating have not been our big flood events that we see happening from time to time across different rivers in the country.
In 2008 to be a 100 year flood, the water would have been 12 inches higher at my house and 24 inches higher in Machesney Park to be classified as the 100 year flood event.
Many homes were lost in 2008 , including mine.
I had flood insurance that I thought would cover carpet drywall cabinets and contents.
5 inches of river water in my house for 5 days saturating my entire subfloor was not something I had thought about.
Carpet and padding is easy to replace but to truly get that mold smell out meant replacing the entire subfloor of the house.
The federal government has a $30000 ICC grant it provides residence to raise their house above the 100 year floodplain.
Many residents chose to raise their houses with this money and some of us who chose to tear down and rebuild
We’re fortunate to have these funds available.
While our river is in the slow draining process, all eyes are on the next potential impact Arriving on monday.
Let’s hope mother nature gives a slight rain. And not another four inch event, in our drainage basin.
None of us want to make the national evening news with helicopters flying over our houses.
I had heard Fremont, Wisconsin was experiencing a 100 year flood event, and my heart goes out to all those people who had paradise in their backyard and now are going through a living hell.
Let’s just have a great weekend and pray our river it goes back to a normal
Level for all affected.