Banner Creek Reservoir full again after hitting recent low

Three months ago, Banner Creek Reservoir west of Holton was at the lowest point in its history — 65 inches, or five feet and five inches, below normal pool.

“We broke the record, and that’s a record we never wanted to see broken,” Banner Creek Reservoir manager Kurt Zibell said Tuesday, referencing the lake’s previous record low of 63.5 inches, recorded in December 2012.

But with the rain that fell in the Holton area, mostly in June, the reservoir’s pool level has been working its way back up, and on Monday, Holton City Manager Teresa Riley told the Holton City Commission that the reservoir is now full.

“If it’s not full today, it’s within about two inches of full,” Riley said during Monday’s commission meeting. “The creek is higher than it should be ahead of the reservoir, and the water is still coming in.”

Holton Water and Wastewater Superintendent Dennis Ashcraft confirmed the report on Tuesday morning, noting that rain that fell on the area that morning was enough to ensure that the reservoir was full, in addition to water still coming into the reservoir from Banner Creek on the west side of the reservoir.

“Banner Creek’s still running, and even with days like Monday, where we’re likely going to see water evaporating out of there, we’ve still got water coming in,” Ashcraft said. “For July, we’re in as good a shape as we can be with the reservoir.”

That’s good news for Public Wholesale Water Supply District 18, which treats reservoir water and sells it to water customers in the city of Holton and Jackson County Rural Water District 3 under Ashcraft’s supervision. Last September, PWWSD 18 issued a Stage II water warning, requesting that Holton and RWD 3 enact voluntary water conservation measures when the reservoir’s pool level dipped to four feet below normal.

The reservoir’s pool level sank to five feet below normal last December, according to PWWSD 18 lake level reports, and the pool level hovered in that area until late April, when the Holton area began to note rain on a regular basis. By June 10, according to PWWSD 18, the pool level rose to 45 inches, or three feet and nine inches, below normal after almost three inches of rain over the week.

On June 17, however, the pool level jumped to 22 inches — two inches shy of two feet — below normal, thanks to an almost four-inch rainfall over that week; three days later, on June 20, the level had risen to 14 inches below normal and has been rising since that time.

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