Lake levels for Lake Glenville are lowered in the fall/winter months for a couple of reasons.
First, the lake level targets begin to decline in July in preparation of hurricane season. There have been a number of remnant hurricanes that have impacted western North Carolina, in particular Hurricanes Fran and Ivan in 2004 and most recently Hurricane Helene in 2024, that caused significant flooding in the mountains. Lowering the lake helps to reduce or mitigate significant flooding concerns by creating storage for excessive runoff from the rainfall.
Additionally, the lower lake levels during the fall/winter allows homeowners an opportunity to perform dock and shoreline maintenance. Dock and shoreline maintenance cannot be performed unless an application for a permit is submitted to Duke Energy Lake Services. That application can be found by clicking here.
During the relicensing of the West Fork of the Tuckasegee River Project, stakeholders developed and agreed to the lake level operating ranges for Lake Glenville that was included in both the settlement agreement and the license application and became a requirement of the license. To avoid confusion among the many reservoirs the Licensee operates, it has adopted the practice of referring to the Normal Full Pond Elevation for all of its reservoirs as equal to 100.0 ft relative.
