by Tom Cox, Chair, Water Level Committee

Light snow and relatively light rain so far this spring have left our water level little changed from levels recorded last year, which was also a year of relatively light snow and spring rain. On Tuesday, May 27, 2003, Walt Kane reported that the level at the DNR gauge in Long Bay was 1379.17'. This is 1/2 inch higher than on the same date last year, and seven tenths of an inch higher than on May 1st this year. It is 1.8 inches lower than it was on November 1, last fall.

In January, with sadness we received notice from Mel Sinn, Surface Water Section Administrator, DNR Waters, that on Thursday, January 16, Dave Ford, who had been directing the DNR's Boy River Hydrologic Study, had died of complications that developed following his second round of cancer treatments. Dave had worked for DNR Waters for 24 years, specializing in the application of hydrologic and hydraulic computer models. Last summer he and his technical assistant, Dana Dostert, gave an illustrated Boy River status report to interested Ten Mile, Birch and Pleasant Lake residents at the Hackensack Senior Center. The data and photographs in that report are accessible [here]. I was pleased to learn in a phone conversation with Mr. Sinn earlier this spring that Dana Dostert is still on the job, and that the Boy River Hydrologic Study will continue. I hope to have more information on the progress of that study later this summer.