On the heels of this week’s heavy rainfall, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday it has heard from many Lake Lanier residents whose docks and walkways now are under water.

"I’ve received numerous phone calls from residents this morning that their docks, and et cetera, have been impacted by the increased elevations in the lake," said Lisa Coghlan, Mobile, Ala.-based spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Some property owners "can’t get access to their boat ramps," she added.

Other potential problems around the shoreline include "bank erosion and instability of the bank," Coghlan said.

Lanier was at 1,072.90 feet above sea level as of Thursday night, up more than a foot and a half from 1071.21 feet Tuesday. Full pool is 1,071 feet.

Lake Lanier Association officials, meanwhile, said they had heard no complaints or concerns from association members about the increased levels.

The corps has said it plans to steadily release water from Buford Dam so that Lanier reaches 1,070 feet above sea level by Dec. 1. The agency’s four-week lake level forecast reflects that trajectory.

"We will be generating as much as possible at Lanier without causing impacts downstream," Coghlan said.

She noted that the outflow could reach 8,420 cubic feet per second — the outflow was 710 cfs Thursday — on Saturday and Sunday, dropping the elevation to 1,072.65 feet by Sunday.

Coghlan added that she expects the level beforehand to peak at 1073.16 feet.

She said the corps is counting on a week or more of dry weather, and a forecast by the National Weather Service in Peachtree City bears that out. Sunny skies are predicted through Monday.

During this week’s rainfall, which produced 4-plus inches in the Hall County area, the corps reduced releases to minimum flow to curtail potential flooding downstream.

The corps caught heavy criticism for that same reaction in late September, when historic rains devastated many areas in North Georgia, flooding neighborhoods and shutting down freeways.

Many people said they believed the corps should have halted all flows at Buford Dam.

Corps officials countered that the flow out of large dams is rarely halted completely because of adverse impacts on river environments.

"The corps will continue to monitor weather conditions and how they may affect the project," Coghlan said, adding that the corps manages the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint basin, of which Lanier is a part, "as a systemwide approach."

The lake level is actually is just a few inches shy of where some Lake Lanier advocates would like to see the body of water remain, creating an instant megareservoir for North Georgia.

Val Perry, executive vice president of the Lake Lanier Association, once remarked, "How many people have been saying for several years that we’ve got to have more dams, more reservoirs? (A higher Lanier) would be the cheapest 25 to 30 billion gallon reservoir in the history of America."

Jackie Joseph, the association’s president, said she believes many residents can adjust to the higher levels.

"Most of the docks are movable," she said. "If (docks) are that close to being underwater, I think that would be a problem that was not perhaps addressed prior to putting the dock in."

Joseph added, "We would have never proposed 1,073 as far as a full pool was concerned if we felt like, as an organization, that it would endanger any docks. We have had no negative comments ... about that."

What a difference a year makes for Lanier, which was dropping rapidly at this time last year because of a two-year drought.

In mid-October, months after the drought was declared over, spokesman E. Patrick Robbins announced that the corps had "gone from operating in a drought situation to our normal operations for flood control."

"All indications are that the Southeast will be in for a wetter-than-normal to normal winter weather pattern, and it is important that the lakes in the system are prepared to handle the excess water," he said.