The Genesee, recently raging, is now a trickle

It’s feast to famine for the Genesee River, which two weeks ago raged through downtown Rochester and today is barely a trickle.

Lack of rain is one reason. Deliberate draining of the section between Court Street and the High Falls is another. The combination has left that stretch of the river remarkably low at times and exposed parts of the riverbed that aren’t normally visible.

The odd appearance of the river triggered a discussion on Reddit and posting of a photo by user Joel Gallant showing more dry land than water in the river channel.

As the Democrat and Chroniclereported last week, a series of heavy rain storms in June and July in the river’s watershed had caused water levels in the Genesee to soar far above average for this time of year. The storms also washed copious amounts of soil and debris into the river, generating complaints about water quality in the near-shore areas of Lake Ontario, into which the Genesee drains.

But the faucet’s been turned off. Many communities in the watershed, which extends down to Pennsylvania, haven’t had any significant rainfall in nearly two weeks.

“The river is super-low right now,” said Steve Winslow, manager of the Mount Morris Dam on the Genesee at Letchworth State Park, where the level has been minimal enough that almost no water was passing through the dam gates. “This is as low as it gets naturally. We’ve had two weeks of nice, dry weather.”

But the levels are particularly low in downtown Rochester because Rochester Gas and Electric Corp. has directed that levels be dropped to allow city of Rochester to remove tree trunks and other debris, an annual exercise. The reduction in flow also facilitates on-going construction work at the Inner Loop bridge near High Falls, RG&E spokesman Dan Hucko said.

RG&E oversees water levels in that stretch of the Genesee because it holds licenses to operate several hydroelectric generating stations. The already-low flow in the river has been reduced further by raising gates at the dam near Court Street. At the same time, RG&E increased flow through its hydroelectric raceway near High Falls.

“So the water in that ‘pond,’ in that impoundment, just ran out,” Hucko said.

He said the river should be returned to its normal flow regime next week.

SOrr@DemocratandChronicle.com