To all members:
At the annual meeting this year and before, there were some concerns that the gate valves on the dam/spillway might have been damaged and were leaking. To be safe, we hired a professional dive company to come do an underwater inspection. The summary is that they inspected both valves as well as the entire underwater surface of the spillway pipe and found zero damage or issues. They also inspected the spillway itself and found it to be in great shape as well.
The attached video was made looking down in the round pipe that sticks out of the lake. If you look closely, you are able to see two round pipes in the side of the structure. These pipes have a control valve/gate on the outside of the structure, and these are what the two wheels on top of the structure lift and lower. The water flowing in the video is water running over the top of the pipe. The circular metal ring sticking out of the water is actually an outer ring to protect the outflow pipe from collecting trash. The water actually flows under the outer ring and up and over the inner ring. It is the inner ring that controls the lake level. Water flows constantly over the inner ring and out at the bottom of the spillway. The water flows constantly to feed the creek below the dam, and it in turn feeds Crystal Lake below us and eventually flows into the Chattooga River.
The dive company also does dam inspections and repairs. While they were on the spillway, they did a basic inspection of the spillway and found everything to be in good repair. There are a few weeds growing in various places and they recommend that we spray these to kill them, so their roots don’t penetrate anywhere. We will get this taken care of quickly.
Thanks
Tom Woodson