Lancaster County Act 167 Release Rates and Flows for Conestoga River and its tributaries (Mill, Little Conestoga, and Cocalico Creeks)

Visual Basic Programming: Envalue Engineering does not sell stand-alone computer programs but can provide programming, as needed, as part of a project. A free  beta-test programming example is available here. This program includes a list of all USGS stream gages in Pennsylvania that provide stage and flow data, and should also work with the majority of gages in the U.S. The program includes a timer that will access a single gage at regular intervals of 15 seconds to  1 hour. The number of checks at less than a 5-minute interval is limited to 15 "cycles" to avoid redundant checks of the USGS gages, which are only updated every 15 minutes. The program also allows the user to set a warning level, and send an email to a single address when the warning level is exceeded. This is betaware, and no warranties or guarantees  are made.

Flows for each watershed are available at the  links along the right hand side of the map. These flows are from the Lancaster County Act 167 watershed models, which were developed for a large scale Engineering study with subareas of one to two square miles. As such, they were not meant to be used for detailed studies on smaller sites, although the flows were based on the best available data at the time of their completion (from 1996 through 2005). As per the agreements between the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the County of Lancaster, the information provided here is public information. It should be used with sound Engineering judgement and flows should be verified using alternate methods.

NOTE: The download is only 248 KB, and takes a few seconds to install. However, if your computer doesn't already  have Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 installed, the download file will install it for you, unless you cancel the installation. If you go ahead with the installation of .NET Framework, it can take a few minutes or tens of minutes and may require the computer to be restarted. Microsoft offers some help athttps://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2570538.

Reanalysis of a Flood of Record Using HEC-2, HEC-RAS, and USGS Gage Data

A Case Study of the Conestoga River written by Andy Weaver, PE has been published (March 2016) on the American Society of Civil Engineers Journal of Hydrologic Engineering here. The final draft can be downloaded at no charge from here.  This case study was a re-analysis of two existing flood studies and the gage record which resulted in a higher peak flow for Tropical Storm Agnes in June, 1972. Agnes is the highest flow ever recorded at the U.S. Geological Survey's gage on the Conestoga River, on the east side of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.