River Reaches High Water Equilibrium [AUDIO]

The North Platte River is flowing very high through Casper, just a few inches below flood stage. Natrona County Emergency Management Coordinator Lt. Stewart Anderson said with the spring runoff release at Grey Reef continuing, the river is precariously high and what we need is cool weather without a lot of precipitation.

Eight feet is flood stage:

"Bureau of Rec is releasing 8,000 cubic feet per second and as it reaches Casper here, they've done some adjustments and re-sychronized the gauge. Right now we're picking up 8,187 cubic feet a second, so we're only picking up just about 200 cubic feet a second. And then foot-wise here in town, we're at 7 point 6-9 feet."

They will be moving this amount of water downstream for weeks into the future, says Lt. Anderson.

Still record snow-pack:

"According to our latest briefing, the Bureau of Rec is planning to keep that flow at that level all this month and a little bit into July, but again, weather dependent, whether it gets real hot, whether it gets hot and rains, whether we get heavy rains, that could all be dependent on what flows through here in Casper."

When asked if the short term forecast predicting no excessively warm days or major precipitation meant we could relax, Lt. Anderson said no.

Too early, water too high:

"We're going to have a very high river for a while and we're still on guard for it coming up even more. We're not going to relax until the melt is gone and things are stabilized and flows are reduced."