Davyfly wrote:

What l do not understand is why the COE chose to pull lake levels down as much as they did this year, was it due to a assumption that we were likely in for heavy rain falls again in the spring, who knows. May be to accommodate the rice farmers, who knows, or the fear of having to deal with another flood issue, who knows.

  
I believe the levels were pulled down to try to eliminate the risk of having to flood everything downstream, as in recent history on the White River system. If I remember right, the COE took the lakes down to top of power pool, and then resumed normal operations.