From the Longmont Times-Call (Scott Rochat):
After a four-month effort to remove 50,000 cubic yards of debris from the reservoir, city workers declared the Longmont Reservoir usable again on Thursday. The lake had been dredged for the cleanup efforts; water began to re-enter on Wednesday.
“We’re filling it slowly on purpose, so we can watch it and control it as it comes up,” said project manager Josh Sherman. “We anticipate it being full by the end of the week.”
The reservoir had been taken out of service by September’s flood, a deluge that also knocked out the connecting North St. Vrain Pipeline and any road access to the area. By the flood’s end, Longmont had only one working pipeline, to Carter Lake, and only one-third of its normal water supply.
By December, crews from Nixcavating, a Longmont firm, had re-opened enough emergency road access to get the pipeline going again and start work on Longmont Reservoir. The lake had to be dredged to get all the silt, rocks and other debris out; much of the rock has been re-used for road work…
According to Holly Milne, a marketing specialist for the public works department, the last bit of debris in Longmont Reservoir was removed the week of March 10.
There’s still more to do. Still more debris — most of it wood — is clogging the inlet to Ralph Price Reservoir. The flood left more logs and wood in the reservoir itself; city workers lowered the lake level there to beach the material.
The inlet needs to be cleared before the runoff, which typically comes in two phases: early to mid-May and then late June to early July. But the wood on the beach will probably be cleared about the time the runoff hits, Sherman said, as workers use rising water levels to bring the logs across the lake and to a more accessible location.