Chalillo Dam Near Capacity

It may not have lowered electricity bills, but at least Chalillo saved San Ignacio from flooding! The Belize Electric Company, BECOL, is reporting between 4 and 5 inches of rain fell in the Mountain Pine Ridge area over the weekend. This caused the dam's reservoir to rise 18 feet within the 12 hours from Saturday night into Sunday morning.

The reservoir which has a capacity of some 124 million cubic meters or 27 billion U.S. gallons is now 93 percent full. This is now translating into 24 hour production of somewhere between 28 and 29 mega watts of power for BEL.