If you've been out for some late season fishing on any local reservoirs to the East you've noticed the water level is lower than usual for the fall.

Much lower than usual.

In particular Pine Coulee Reservoir West of Stavely is the lowest it's been in it's 15 year history, about 20-feet down from it's usual level at around 50% capacity.

John Mahoney, the Operations Infrastructure Manager with Alberta Environment and Parks says for the casual observer the drop would be alarming.

"I think that's because over the last 10 years or so, we've been able to maintain that reservoir full for the full summer season. And that's not realistically the way that reservoir needs to be operated. So what we've seen this year is more normally along the lines of what can be expected from that reservoir."

Mahoney says poor runoff and little spring rain, plus agricultural demand contributed to the low levels.

He says the one beneficiary was the Chain Lakes Reservoir West of Nanton, which saw very little draw down over the summer as it feeds into Willow Creek, which in turn feeds into Pine Coulee.

He says because there wasn't that much run-off in the spring, they couldn't flow through the water from Chain so consequently it's levels remained relatively normal.

He says a normal winter and spring will fill it back up again come next year.