The extra water is delaying Monday's work on the dam itself. Once it goes down, a gate will be opened to lower the level in the Tar River reservoir even more.
"We'll do it deliberately. We'll do it for a period of time. The river will increase in elevation, but it certainly ought to stay within its banks," says Paul Blount, Director of Water Resources for Rocky Mount.
About five feet of water will be released over several days so crews can replace some machinery, but no problems are expected. "Maybe the most compelling reason that folks downstream shouldn't worry about this relevance is all the dry land. This time last week, because of the heavy weekend rains, all of this was covered by several feet of water. But even then, not a bit of damage was reported downstream." -->
Fisherman Carlton Winstead says the controlled release is not a big deal.
"Since the rain has stopped last week, it's gotten back into the banks like it should be. It will get even lower than this," he says.
Once the water is lowered, the gate will stay down until the repairs are done sometime in May. If things go well, the reservoir will be filled up again by mid-summer.
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