Spillway Gates Open At Lake Oologah

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is trying to get the level of Oologah Lake back to normal as quickly as possible.

It’s opened the gates on Oologah Dam, as well as the gates on the Oologah Spillway.

The lake is about eight feet above normal, thanks to all the recent rain in the Verdigris River watershed, which stretches way up into Kansas.

The Corps usually regulates the level of the lake by using the gates in the dam and opens the spillway gates only on rare occasions.

The Corps of Engineers began releasing water from the dam on Friday, October 7, 2016. The release remained the same until Sunday, when the Corps' hydrology department requested an increase to 22,500 cubic feet of water per second.

In order to raise the amount, the Corps decided to use the spillway and balance the release between the two structures. It expects to keep the current release level in place until at least October 17.

6/5/2015: Related Story: Oologah Lake Spillway Creates Picturesque Scene

Oologah Lake was completed in the late ‘60s and the first time the Corps opened the spillway was during the great northeast Oklahoma flood in the fall of 1986. Since then it's only been opened a few times.