UFT
TURNS 50
June 25, 2009
- One of New England's premier fly tying organizations, United Fly Tyers,
will be celebrating their 50th anniversary on Sunday, October 25th. The
day's festivities will include an Anniversary Dinner and Auction in the
main dinning room of Longfellow's Wayside Inn (www.wayside.org),
72 Wayside Inn Rd., Sudbury, MA. Activities will commence with a trout
fishing session on historic Josephine Pond from 1pm-4pm (no license is
required, C&R, barbless hooks, fly fishing only) with a chicken
picantee dinner to follow at 5pm. There are 120 tickets available for
the event and they will be sold on a first come, first served basis. The
cost is $40/person and further information can be obtained by contacting
UFT at info@unitedflytyers.org.
THE SWIFT
On Thursday, June 18th water levels on the Swift River below Windsor Dam
were lowered to a dangerous 30 cfs. This is barely enough water to
sustain the cold water fishery throughout the duration of June, let
alone July. Thanks to Bill Theurkauf for doing some investigative
reporting and his recent email goes a long way in explaining the
dilemma. In response to Bill Theurkauf's queries…
"Bill: The reason
the Swift is running warm is that Quabbin has been spilling over the
spillway for quite some time. We've had a wet year. Reservoir surface
water is warm and that's what goes over the spillway. The
"bubbler" is not broken but we do have a major valve
improvement project underway in the Windsor Powerhouse that releases
water into the Swift. That valve project is necessary to replace a
large failing valve to allow us to make the releases into the Swift. I
have a meeting on this project at Quabbin on Friday and will have a
better sense of status. Feel free to email me next week for an
update."
In a follow up email…
"Bill: The valve
replacement will not be completed through testing until late July.
MWRA is presently meeting our minimum release requirements via the
spillway which we monitor closely. (Our release requirement is 20 MGD
and the spillway is releasing just under 80 MDGD and will not cease in
the short term.) That said, we plan to open the bypass to release an
additional 25 MGD of Quabbin bottom water early next week."
John Gregoire
Program Manager, Reservoir Operations
MWRA
Ok so here's the
million-dollar question. Will the traditional July 1st stocking take
place as planned or be postponed, canceled or delayed due to
unsustainable water conditions?
Once again we thank Bill
Theurkauf for doing all the heavy lifting on this dire matter.
Good fishing and safe
wading,
JB
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