The official water year designation for the Trinity River is “wet”. The water allocation for restoration related flow releases associated with a wet water year is 701,000 acre-feet.
The high flow release schedule for the Trinity River is as follows: the flow releases will begin increasing on April 22, 2011, reaching a peak release of 11,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) on May 4. These peak flows will be held for a period of 3 days, and then decreased to 4,500 cfs by May 9. After that date, releases will be gradually decreased to a 450 cfs summer base-flow by August 1. Click here to download the daily flow schedule. The public should take appropriate safety precautions whenever river flows are high. Landowners are advised to clear personal items and debris from the floodplain prior to the releases.
The TRRP Flow Scheduling process is described below. A news release about the consideration of 11,000 cfs was posted March 30, 2011. You may also subscribe to our Automated Flow Release Notifications. Actual releases may not always follow the flow schedule – see our Flow FAQ page for details.
Flow Scheduling Process
Based on preliminary water year forecasts in February and March, technical representatives of the Trinity River Restoration Program and program partners develop flow release recommendations to meet various restoration objectives and management targets listed in Chapter 8 of the Trinity River Flow Evaluation Final Report [PDF - 10mb]. Deliberations start with the typical flow release schedule recommended in the Record of Decision that may be adapted to meet specific restoration needs for the current year.
The flow recommendations are then presented to the Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group (TAMWG) and the Trinity Management Council (TMC) in late March or early April for consideration. The flow release recommendation approved by the TMC is then forwarded to the Bureau of Reclamation, which has the final authority over dam releases.
