More Than a Few Showers Needed to Alleviate Drought

This month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers loosed a surge of water from a Western Maryland reservoir to learn more about the drought's effect on water flows. The extra water, set free Oct. 7, reached a key point in the Potomac River early Sunday, seven days later.

More water was released this week to see how quickly it would flow from the Jennings Randolph Reservoir in Maryland's panhandle to Little Falls, the data-collecting point for the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin.

The test measures the time it takes for the surge of water to reach the downstream measuring points. The data are used to determine when engineers need to release water to get it to users in case of extreme drought.

"If we can refine our understanding of how travel time works, it means we could perhaps craft a release strategy," said Erik Hagen, director of operations for the commission. "The overall goal of the test releases is to improve the future water supply reliability for Washington."

Hagen said conditions were optimal to conduct the tests. The season for such releases runs from July to October; reservoirs are full; and rivers and streams are at low flow levels.

The last such test was done in 1999, when the region experienced record low rainfall and low water supply levels. Water from those releases took nine days to travel downriver.

Staff writer Joe Holley and the Associated Press contributed to this report.