NEWS INFORMATION FROM

THE OFFICE OF MAYOR STEPHEN R. REED
City of Harrisburg
King City Government Center
Harrisburg, PA 17101-1678
Telephone: 255.3040

FOR IMMEDIATE USE
1 April 2003

DEHART DAM AT FULL CAPACITY FOR FIRST TIME IN NEARLY 2 YEARS

Harrisburg, PA—Mayor Stephen R. Reed today announced that the city’s DeHart Dam, the sprawling water body in the middle of Dauphin County that stretches almost to the Schuykill County line, is now at full capacity for the first time in nearly two years.

The Mayor said that, as of April 1, the water level is two inches over the spillway, with excess water flowing freely into Clarks Creek. It is clear evidence that the significant drought effects of the past two years have substantially abated.

The last time the DeHart Dam, which holds six billion gallons of water when full, was flowing over the spillway was June 9, 2001. To give an idea of how much water flow from creeks and streams had dried up in the time since, Reed said that on March 18, 2002, it was 272 inches below the spillway, which is well below even the ten year average for that time of the year. On February 24 this year, it was 120 inches below, and on March 15, it was 103 inches below the spillway. Snow melt from an unusually hard winter, combined with recent rainfall, now has the water flowing over the dam’s crest.

There are 23 streams and creeks that feed water supply into the DeHart Dam impound. “Mother Nature has an amazing ability to bounce back,” Reed said. The DeHart Dam is the primary source of water for the Harrisburg Water System, which serves all or part of five municipalities. The City built a redundant system in 1990, by which water from the from the Susquehanna River can replace all or part of the supply from the DeHart Dam if needed in an emergency or a drought, so the city water system was never in danger of running out of water during the recent drought, he noted.

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