The year’s snow runoff and the little rain in March has helped the Raccoon River but Spring Lake in Greene County is still very low.

Greene County Conservation Director Dan Towers says he was surprised at how much the winter runoff and rain has done to fill the Raccoon River considering what the conditions were like last year.  He comments that last year, people were dragging their canoes and kayaks because of the drier conditions but now that water level is ideal for those water sports to begin.

He states that a safe river water level is about a third to halfway full when the water is covering sandbars but not so high that its up to the banks.

However, Towers points out that Spring Lake is still suffering from last year’s drought and to make matters worse, there’s no way to manually fill it.

“There really is no way.  We don’t have access to a big well or anything.  There’s no runoff, there’s no watershed that feeds it.  It’s just a dug pit and we rely on whatever the groundwater table is and right now we’re low.  We’re pretty much at the mercy of mother nature to put water back in that.”

Towers notes that Spring Lake is only half full right now.

The National Weather Service is predicting some spring showers over the weekend to try and help replenish lakes and rivers in the state.