The New River Dries was scheduled to have its first planned releases ever this weekend, however inflows will be exceeding the capacity of the hydropower diversion and the Dries will be running around 5,000 cfs without a release. There are worse problems to have! This means that this weekend's 2200-2500 cfs releases will be rescheduled for next weekend, which looks promising for the releases to occur with good water levels and weather, and if needed one more weekend, after which they will be cancelled if they have not occured. 

Of course, March is a time of high water and "natural" flows in the New River Dries, so rescheduling or cancelation of March releases will be common. American Whitewater proposed releases from March through October. State regulators prevented flow releases during April, May, and most of June because of their concerns that more natural flows would impact smallmouth bass spawning. This left July and August as a timeframe for seven scheduled high-value releases during a period of naturally lower flows, and March as a lower value but also low-conflict time to have a couple releases. 

So we hope you enjoy the March releases if they are needed and occur this year, and if not, we'll see you on the Dries this summer! Also in the works for this summer is a new take-out and some new parking improvements at the Cotton Hill Bridge.