Drought, not water sales, blamed for low Atwood Lake levels
NEW PHILADELPHIA (WJER) (Sept. 17, 2024) – The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District is encouraging owners to plan to remove boats from Atwood Lake due to declining water levels.
Some social media users responding to the recent announcement are criticizing the MWCD for selling lake water to oil and gas companies.
But MWCD Director Craig Butler says the water levels have dropped due to the extreme drought, and not the sale of water, which has since stopped.
“Over the course of this summer, the sales of water that we’ve had to the oil and gas industry have had a really negligible, less than an inch of impact in our estimation,” Butler said.
He says the water is about a foot and a half below normal right now at Atwood.
“People that have been here a lot longer than I have said this is very close or akin to the 1988 drought,” he said.
Butler says water sales at Atwood were curtailed 75 percent just over two weeks ago, and then 100 percent as of last week.