Watts Bar Lake Water Level
Watts Bar Lake is at 740.81 ft today (Oct 6), 0.19 ft below its 741 ft full pool, up 0.07 ft this week.
Tennessee · Tennessee River
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Water level history
About Watts Bar Lake
Watts Bar Lake is a reservoir on the Tennessee River in Tennessee, operated by Tennessee Valley Authority. Its full summer pool sits at 741 ft above sea level. Live water levels come from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and update hourly.
Understanding Watts Bar Lake's water level
Watts Bar Lake runs 72.4 miles up the Tennessee River from Watts Bar Dam, near Spring City, to Fort Loudoun Dam, and its level follows a guide curve that moves only about five feet over the year. Through the winter TVA holds the lake near 736 feet, inside an operating band of 735 to 737. Filling starts in early April and climbs steadily until mid May, when the guide reaches 740.75 feet and the band tightens to 740.15 through 740.85. That summer pool holds through October. The drawdown begins on November 2, and by December 1 the lake is back at 736. TVA describes the summer operating range as 740 to 741 feet and the winter minimum as 735, so the 741 foot full pool shown here is the top of that summer band. The spillway gates top out at 745 feet, and TVA credits the reservoir with 379,000 acre-feet of flood storage over a drainage area of 17,310 square miles. TVA also warns that release schedules can change without notice for weather or power system needs, so a reading a few tenths off the guide is routine.
This is a mainstem navigation lake. The dam carries a single lock, 60 feet wide and 360 feet long, that lifts and lowers barges as much as 70 feet; TVA says it was the highest single lift lock in the world when it was built, and it now passes more than a million tons of cargo a year. The navigable channel runs more than 20 miles up the Clinch River and 12 miles up the Emory. Construction began in 1939, and the gates closed on January 1, 1942, three weeks after Pearl Harbor, with the power going in part to the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge. The project relocated 832 families, 17 cemeteries and 121 miles of road, and an earthen dike was built to protect downtown Kingston. The spa town of Rhea Springs, once a resort with a mineral spring and hotel, went under the lake in Rhea County. When the level drops in winter, old concrete from the school and the water tower at the hotel site can still be seen.
The Clinch River arm carries a legacy from Oak Ridge. According to DOE, activities on the Oak Ridge Reservation since the early 1940s contaminated the Clinch, Poplar Creek and lower Watts Bar, and federal health investigators put releases of radioactive material from White Oak Creek into the Clinch at about 200,000 curies between 1944 and 1991, with the highest cesium readings found buried in deep channel sediment. Since 1991 an interagency agreement has governed any dredging in the reservoir, and DOE decisions in 1995 and 1997 chose dredging limits and fish consumption restrictions over removal. At the headwaters of the reservoir, on December 22, 2008, a dike failure at TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant released about 5.4 million cubic yards of ash into the Emory River near its confluence with the Clinch. About 3.5 million cubic yards were dredged from the river, and the Emory reopened to navigation and recreation in May 2010. Despite all this, TWRA stocks striped bass, black crappie, walleye and Florida largemouth bass here every year, and striped bass have been stocked since 1964.
Watts Bar Lake — frequently asked
What is Watts Bar Lake's full pool?
TVA's summer operating range is 740 to 741 feet, and this page uses 741 feet as full pool, the top of that band. In practice the daily guide sits at 740.75 feet from mid May through October, with an operating zone of 740.15 to 740.85. The winter minimum is 735 feet. The dam's spillway gates top out at 745 feet, which is where the flood storage above summer pool comes from.
When does TVA draw down Watts Bar Lake?
The fall drawdown starts on November 2 and lowers the guide by roughly a sixth of a foot a day until it reaches 736 feet on December 1. The lake then sits in a 735 to 737 foot band through the winter. TWRA describes the winter drawdown as 5 to 6 feet, enough to shrink the surface area noticeably and expose shallow flats, old stumps and, near Rhea Springs, remnants of the flooded town.
When does Watts Bar Lake fill back up in the spring?
The guide curve starts rising in early April. It climbs from about 736 feet at the start of the month to 738 feet by April 8, then keeps rising more slowly until it reaches the 740.75 foot summer level around May 16. Heavy spring rain can push the lake ahead of the curve, and dry weather can leave it behind, since TVA balances the fill against flows across the whole Tennessee River system.
Is it safe to eat fish from Watts Bar Lake?
Only with care. TDEC's advisory for the Tennessee River portion says catfish, striped bass and hybrid striped bass should not be eaten, and it lists white bass, sauger, carp, smallmouth buffalo and largemouth bass as precautionary, meaning one meal a month for adults and none for children or pregnant or nursing women. In the Clinch arm and Emory embayment striped bass should not be eaten, and no fish should be eaten from the Poplar Creek embayment. PCBs drive most of these listings.
What happened in the Kingston coal ash spill?
On December 22, 2008, a dike holding about 20 million cubic yards of material failed at TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant near Harriman. About 5.4 million cubic yards of bottom ash and fly ash poured out, covering roughly 300 acres and choking the Emory River. EPA reports three homes were destroyed. Dredged ash went by rail to a landfill in Perry County, Alabama, and river monitoring is planned for up to 30 years.
How big is Watts Bar Lake?
TVA puts the surface at over 39,090 acres with 722 miles of shoreline, stretched along 72.4 miles of the Tennessee River plus the lower Clinch and Emory rivers. TWRA uses a slightly larger figure of 39,600 acres. The dam itself is 112 feet high and 2,960 feet long, with five generating units rated at 196 megawatts of summer net dependable capacity.
What are the fishing limits on Watts Bar Lake?
TWRA's reservoir rules allow 15 crappie a day with a 10 inch minimum, and five black bass in combination with a 15 inch minimum on largemouth. Striped bass must be 15 inches from April through October, and 36 inches from November through March. Sauger are 10 a day at 15 inches, and anglers may keep only one catfish over 34 inches per day.
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