Eleven Years and Still Having Fun
Welcome back to another summertime in the Belgrades and the eleventh year of the Dams Keeper Report — I can’t believe we are into our eleventh year and still having fun!!!
As of this writing, we are beginning the summer of 2026 with Great Pond’s Village dam 3.96″ above full pond with its main gate opened 1′. Basically, the water is 4″ deep going over the top of the stone spillway. Long Pond and its Wings Mill dam is 4.92″, also above full pond with both gates now closed. Salmon/McGrath is 4.8″ also above full pond with its single gate opened just the mandated 1 cfs flow. Our neighbors on Messalonskee are presently 3.36″ below full pond with their ongoing efforts to keep as much water in the pond as possible in order to meet their and our hydroelectric demands.
With another 26% less precipitation, drought forecasted, we are once again trying to get our summer underway with all of the ponds at 3″ above full pond. If you recall, at 3″ above full, the water level shouldn’t float off any one′s dock and more importantly, not flood out any of our native hummock-style loon nests. So, why then are we one to two inches above full pond across the watershed? We’re good, but we′re still mortals!! With all of the past rain events, we elected to start storing the water in light of the long term forecast even if it results temporarily in a bit higher water level than ideal. Which to date, has proven to be the right call. As of this writing, we are forecasted to receive just 0.15″ of precipitation for the next 10 days so hopefully by the time you read this, all of our ponds will be at 3″ above full pond! A magic wand would be so much easier!
With all of our known significant Dams Committee projects behind us, we are praying for a summer and fall with just routine maintenance! But, we’ve been caught with our proverbial you know what before, so we are prepared!
If you have a particular question regarding our dams or water levels, please email your inquiry to and we will try to answer your question either in this column or via email.
Enjoy your summer! It should be beautiful. Welcome back!
Dick
Dick Greenan is chairman of the Belgrade Lakes Watershed Dams Committee.<— Previous Article • Summaries • Next Article —>
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