RICHARDSONTOWN TOWNSHIP – Instead of drawing down lakes in northern Oxford County to make room for spring melt, Florida Power and Light Energy Hydro LLC is lowering one and filling another prior to normal winter drawdown later this month.

FPL began accelerating drawdown of Mooselookmeguntic Lake and filling Richardson Lake a week and a half ago. On Tuesday, it had half a foot to go in five days to reach the 2-foot goal on Richardson.

Water is being released through Upper Dam, which separates Mooselookmeguntic from Upper Richardson Lake.

According to advertisements in the Sun Journal, the company will fill Richardson Lake with 456 million cubic feet of water from Mooselookmeguntic, causing Richardson Lake to rise 2 feet in two weeks. The ad warns people traveling on the ice on either lake to check for conditions and be wary of daily ice condition changes.

“It’s not really anything that exciting, to be honest with you,” FPL river engineer Carol Clark said Tuesday afternoon. “It’s just a bit unusual for this time of year. If it was me, I wouldn’t bother to put anything in the paper.”

She said the company wants the lake higher than it would normally be at this time of year to monitor conditions and gather data regarding an issue with Middle Dam.

Middle dam is in Township C on Lower Richardson Lake, separating it from Pond in the River, the Rapid River and Lake Umbagog.

Clark said she doesn’t know what the issue is and deferred comment about technical issues to engineer Jessica Ireton-Hewitt, who was in a daylong meeting with other project engineers and unavailable for comment.

FPL operates dams in the upper Androscoggin River and Rangeley Lakes watersheds.

Clark, whose job is moving water around, said FPL had the ad run to warn snowmobilers and people using Richardson and Mooselookmeguntic should ice conditions change during the draining and filling process.

At most, she said lake ice might float free from shore during fill up, but would then refreeze as temperatures dropped. She likened the situation to one that might happen in a January thaw, although raising the water level by 2 feet is higher than what would be attained during a January thaw.

“I haven’t heard any complaints yet. I don’t think it’s going to bother anything,” Clark said.