Saline Co. Considering Norrell for Recreational Releases

[Ryans_Brother]

I got a call from a guy who is working with a Saline County committee that is tasked with developing tourism for the county. He is exploring scheduled recreational releases of the Norrell Spillway. His idea is to install a gate over the current dam and stop all out flow during the week. Then, open the gate on the weekend for recreational use. He is hoping the natural inflow from ground springs and rains would be sufficient to provide weekend releases in March - June (or later).

He also mentioned an alternate discharge point from the lake that would provide longer, more tame stretch of whitewater.

If an ACC Officer would like the name and number of this person, I can provide it.

-Rick Center

[bmartin]

Sweet! I always think of Norrell as a short after work run. I might suggest having a regular weekday (Friday) afternoon-evening release and putting in some primitive viewing area near the bridge to get the 'tourist' coming.

Let me know if you need help Rick.

[Renee H]

So what are they asking the ACC to do? I'm game for releases - how cool would that be to paddle it weekdays after work?

[Ryans_Brother]

This guy wasn't seeking any assistance from the ACC. He mainly wanted information about levels and the sport of WW kayaking. He saw my phone number on a Norrell post on the message board and called me. I wasn't much help on the levels, but based on a PM from Lance, I think he (Lance) has the specific info this guy is seeking.

I doubt this committee will be interested in late afternoon weekday releases since their main objective is to generate tourism revenue and taxes for Saline county. The weekday boaters would be local, which means no hotel stays or restaurant meals.

This guy also meantioned that Saline Co passed a "hamburger tax" which has been largely unspent. He said the funds are almost up to $1M. He thinks they would only need a small portion of these funds to develop Norrell into a tourism destination.

I posted this in the event the ACC wants to help with this project. I know there are people in the club who have done some research in this area.

Imagine this...The Norrell Whitewater Festival...A weekend of races down the spillway, a downriver style competition, a flatwater clinic/roll session and/or boatball on the lake. With a guaranteed release, I bet it would draw boaters from AR, TX, LA, OK, MO & TN (as long as it didn't rain that weekend).

[Tmuse]

And with a Norrell release on the weekend and being the only water in the area it would be a total cluster! Not sure i like this idea, plus look what has happened to rockport.

[Jim Krueger]

Since I live fairly close to the lake, it's been a favorite destination for many of my motorcycle rides. Lake Norrell is almost surrounded by permanent and vacation residences that have stationary docks, and some with more elaborate landscaping down to waters edge. In each case, it looks to me as if everyone living there has fine-tuned everything on their shoreline to correspond to the level of that spillway, plus just a dab more for heavy rain events. I can imagine many residents might take a 'dim view'
of even another foot or two of water rise. Gaining their approval may be difficult. On a more positive note, the spillway structure certainly looks robust enough to handle the small gates mentioned to retain more water.
I can only guess the alternate release site would be the present outlet structure emptying into the North Fork downstream?

Best Regards
Jim

[FarPastGone]

Norrell seems way to small to have recreational releases on, I am with Tmuse. Now if they took that extra 1Milli sitting around and made some more cool rapids below the stuff below the bridge then it would be worth it. :)

-Matt

[weirdwillie]

And with a Norrell release on the weekend and being the only water in the area it would be a total cluster! Not sure i like this idea, plus look what has happened to rockport.

I'm relatively new to the area so please forgive my ignorance. What "happened" to Rockport? I personally enjoy paddling there since there are a lot of different water features for playboating.

Regarding Norrell, I would be suprised if the current lake residents would allow any water level rise over a foot (maybe this would be enough for an occasional release?). I still haven't run Norrell but I'm dying to- I was up there one weekend when the water level was above one of the makeshift bridges towards the top of the run and it looked awesome!

[bryanpin]

my first reaction is that the watershed is too small to do this. the only way to get more water is flucate the lake levels with gates like Jim said. Sure that's good in theory I guess. although my opinion is that we have a gift at norrell as it is. it's not big enough to build a destination type park. even if you build gates, the lake doesn't have enought water to even reach the spillway during the drier months. so it's rain dependent anyway, and right now we have a great local short creek to lap area every time it rains hard. it never runs long and would take a significant raise in lake levels to get that extra water, (won't it? you math guys figure the extra water gained for every foot rise in lake level and how much longer our release would be)

just some thoughts, and here's my last. it's also not a natural feature anyway and is only there because of the lake. so if you get the landowners to sign off and can figure the engineering out to make sense, don't you dare just build gates.!!!! build a gate system and flume it out to the end of the spillway then let us drop that gradient all at once!!

[Tmuse]

I like the idea of being able to hold water back and then being able to release the water on the weekends, But that would not be norrell. I like norrell the way it is, plus i think it is to small of an area and i don't want the county to come in and break out a dozer to make enough room, that is what has happened down at the ledge, it is too public i like how it used to be. Don't get me wrong, i like going down to the ledge to play, but the playspots have changed since the sidewalk was put in. On the other hand it is a great place to learn to boat, I learned to boat there and both of my boys have learned to boat there as well. Just my 2 bills!

[ScottH]

Rick, has anyone (besides Lance) contacted you? If not I will try to give you a call this week. I am all for anything that would increase our paddling days on a non-natural/manmade location. And you never know when one discussion about one thing might open a door and lead to something else. Practicality and logistics can be worked out later. We just need to make sure this guy gets the contact info and answers he needs.

The easiest thing I see they could do is put a gauge or web cam on it so paddlers know when it is running. We can calculate how many laps we can run based on the lake level.

Scott

[Lazer]

I spoke with the individual that contacted Rick and had a good discussion on some of the issues/options to be explored.

First the individual wanted to let us know he is not an official member of any committee or with the County or City. He is however working on ideas to promote to the City/County to potentially increase tourism.

A couple of the issues related to potential Norrell releases:

1) Not looking at any options that would raise the current normal elevation of the lake.

2) How much drawdown could be available/acceptable. Based on my calculations, a one inch drawdown in lake elevation will provide approximately 4-6 hours of boatable release flows. So in my opinion, some releases are feasible without significant impact on the lake level. However, modifications would be required to the existing levee next to the spillway to accomodate a means of providing 'scheduled' releases.

3) Other recreation opportunities my also exist via lower difficulty whitewater section, trails on City owner property downstream of the lake, etc.

At this point, it is merely a discussion topic. Provide some thoughts, ideas, concerns, etc. so we can discuss. If it looks like it has real potential, then we can move into phase to develop a proposal.

But on a more pressing issue: Norrell is likely running today!

[SteveGabbard]

This is a pipe dream. I live in Benton and can tell you right now that the A&P will not spend a cent to improve Norrell. It is too far from Benton and there are too many ways to access it without going through Benton.

[curly]

On a side note, has there ever been much consideration for such a park and play spot below the Lake Maumelle spillway? It is currently posted by CAW, but with some 'habitat restoration projects' the area could become very interesting.

[Lakefire]

As one of the people that has had a lot and cabin on Lake Norrell sence 1955 { or in our family } this won't work , things like this have been tryed before over the years , your fight city hall because half of them live on the lake , Sorry , Scott M