SUMMERS COUNTY, W.Va. – Officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says they have been continuously monitoring debris and water feeding into the Bluestone Dam after Hurricane Helene ravaged areas that feed the New River.
Public affairs officer, Brian Maka says the Bluestone Lake crested at nearly 1,500 feet on Sunday. Maka says the lake will be in an elevated state for weeks and right now the gates at the base of the dam are flowing more than 26,000 cubic feet of water per second.
Maka says debris building up at the dam poses no serious threat and will be dealt with in the coming weeks as the corps of engineers removes non-organic material from the waterway by boat.
It’s probably going to be about three weeks time before we start dealing with the debris that’s collected there at Bluestone. It’s a routine thing. It happens all the time at most of our structures,” said Maka. “Some of our structures don’t have debris issues, some are worse than others.”
The Bluestone Dam regulates water coming from the New River which starts in North Carolina. Maka says the dam is functioning properly and continues to reduce flooding in communities downstream like Hinton, Thurmond and even Charleston.
The concrete dam is 165 feet tall and is nearly a half mile long as it spans the New River Valley. The Bluestone Dam helps regulate waters coming from a 4600 square-mile basin upstream of the dam.
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