Cascade Water Alliance announced Tuesday that Lake Tapps has officially reached recreation levels, completing the fill 12 days after the date cited in the water purveyor’s agreement with homeowners, but ahead of the May 1 schedule they set earlier this month.

As of 4 p.m. Thursday, the lake level stood at 541.89 feet, above the 541.5 minimum.

The annual Lake Tapps refill was slow this year because of an unusually dry winter and low flows in the White River, which feeds the flume that fills the lake.

“March 2010 was one of the driest Marches on record — about 20 percent below the lowest recorded levels” Casacde Board Chair Lloyd Warren said in a press release. “The refill level of Lake Tapps flattened out at about 535.5 feet in mid-March, and we really pushed to fill the lake since then.”

According to Capital Projects Director Jon Shimada, the warm weather at the end of April led to increased snowpack which, along with increased rainfall totals, allowed the company to divert more water to the lake.

“The river flow really increased,” Shimada said Thhursday in a phone interview. “Once we got 1,500 cfs in the river we were able to take larger amounts.”

Lake residents have been understanding about the slow fill this year. Leon Stucki, vice president of the Lake Tapps Community Coalition, said cascade has “bent over backwards” to try and accommodate residents in a dry year that posed many challenges.

“We’re very pleased with the way cascade has been managing that,” Stucki said Wednesday. “they’re doing a great job on this end of it.”

Shimada said another issue this year was that Cascade drew the lake down further than normal to do repair work on the dikes that hold in the water as well as in an attempt to control the milfoil that has crept into the lake in recent years.

This past winter, the lake was drawn down to 530 feet, which Shimada said they would most likely not do in the future.

“That will allow the refill a lot quicker,” he said.

This is the first year that Cascade has managed the lake, which it purchased from Puget Sound Energy.

Shimada said the company learned several lessons from its first year in control. For example, Shimada said that the company learned it can begin diverting up to 150 cfs from the river prior to Feb. 15, which is when the refill began.

“We were under the impression that we couldn’t start refilling before Fe. 15,” Shimada said, adding that they’d start earlier next year.

He also said the company learned about the maximum amounts of water the flume can handle and would use that information in the future as well.

Stucki said he felt that despite the rocky start to the relationship between the company and the homeowners, he was pleased with the effort put forth by Cascade and was sure they would do better next year.

“I think it will be fine in the future,” he said.