Lake Cumberland Water Supply Storage Reallocation Study

The Situation

Lake Cumberland, located in Russell County, Kentucky, is a large reservoir that is operated by the Nashville District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Nashville District). It currently serves as the water supply for 11 municipal and industrial (M&I) water supply users. The Corps wanted to investigate whether storage can be reallocated for existing and future needs of the existing M&I users and any new users at the Wolf Creek Dam and Reservoir project on Lake Cumberland.

The Solution

GKY accessed existing State databases and M&I data sources to collect all pertinent data and then developed water demand forecasts for eight of the 11 existing users over the next 20 years, assessing the existing and future return (wastewater) flows to the reservoir as well as potential water conservation program savings. GKY then identified water source alternatives, including new and enlarged reservoirs and new pipelines, to meet the projected future demands of the users, and performed an economic analysis of the capital and operations and maintenance costs of the alternatives in order to provide recommendations to the Corps for the most economical water sources to meet the projected demands.