NEWS RELEASE
April 10, 2017

State’s Reservoirs PREVENT MAJOR HUDSON RIVER FLOODING

Great Sacandaga Lake and Indian Lake Reservoir Reduce Peak Hudson River Flow by 67%
 
The Great Sacandaga Lake and Indian Lake Reservoir provided 2.23 billion cubic feet of water storage on April 7 preventing the Hudson River from reaching major flood stage from the Town of Hadley to Fort Edward.  The State’s two Hudson River regulating reservoirs stored more than 16.64 billion gallons of runoff on Friday, reducing the peak Hudson River flow by approximately 32,850 cubic feet per second (cfs) Friday morning.
 
Last week’s rainfall and runoff from melting snow caused the Hudson River to reach an average flow of about 16,400 cfs at Hadley on Friday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.  With the storage capacity of the Great Sacandaga Lake and Indian Lake Reservoir, the Hudson River at Fort Edward never reached flood stage.
 
Without the combined storage capacity of the State’s Hudson River regulating reservoirs, Hudson River flow at Corinth would have peaked at more than 49,250 cfs, and would have resulted in Hudson River flow exceeding major flood stage at Fort Edward by more than 2.3 feet on April 7.  Operation of the Great Sacandaga Lake reduced the height of flood water by more than 6.2 feet, significantly reducing potential flood damage to buildings, roads and bridges in Hadley, Corinth, South Glens Falls, Glens Falls, Hudson Falls, and Fort Edward.
 
If Great Sacandaga Lake had not been constructed to retain a flood event like that which occurred on Friday then major flooding including roads in Northumberland, camps in Lake Luzerne, parts of Route 9N in Corinth, and numerous roads and property in the Village of Fort Edward would have been inundated.