Bathymetry of Bonnie Doone Lake, Kornbow Lake, Mintz Pond, and Glenville Lake, Cumberland County, North Carolina, 1996-98

Bathymetric surveys were conducted at four water-supply impoundments of Little Cross Creek in Cumberland County, North Carolina. The surveys were conducted in April 1996 at Mintz Pond and Glenville Lake, and in January 1998 at Bonnie Doone Lake and Kornbow Lake. The resulting bathymetric maps are the first to cover the entire range in depth for these reservoirs and provide a framework for future evaluations of bathymetry and storage capacity.

Bathymetric maps were constructed from depth and position data collected at each reservoir. A boat-mounted, research-grade fathometer was used to record water depths with a vertical accuracy of 0.1 foot. At Mintz Pond and Glenville Lake, position was measured by using a wide-band laser tracking system interfaced with a total station survey instrument. This positioning method required multiple land-based control points to be established and was hampered by line-of-sight restrictions between the control points and the boat. At Bonnie Doone Lake and Kornbow Lake, a global positioning system was used to collect differentially corrected location data. This positioning method enabled more rapid data collection, eliminated the need for land-based control points, and provided improved data coverage.

Spillway elevations range from 172.8 feet above mean sea level at Bonnie Doone Lake to 113.1 feet at Glenville Lake. Surface area and storage volume were computed for each reservoir and were related to water-surface elevations at 1-foot intervals. The combined surface acreage of the four Little Cross Creek reservoirs at their full-pool elevations is 120.97 acres, consisting of 21.20 acres at Bonnie Doone Lake, 47.09 acres at Kornbow Lake, 15.56 acres at Mintz Pond, and 37.12 acres at Glenville Lake. The four reservoirs have a combined usable storage capacity of 674.91 acre-feet, which is the sum of 127.93 acre-feet in Bonnie Doone Lake, 320.62 acre-feet in Kornbow Lake, 53.25 acre-feet in Mintz Pond, and 173.11 acre-feet in Glenville Lake.