Save Our Lakes Now has pleaded for a drought plan that keeps the lakes as full as possible. The way releases have been handled recently demonstrate that this approach is feasible. Basically all we have been saying is hold lake levels at full pool as long as release rates do not drop below the minimum value (3600cfs) that has been demonstrated to be safe during the past decade. We do not need to wait until further studies of drought management have been done to justify this approach. With regard to release rates the purpose of studies is to determine more precisely what the lowest acceptable release rate is for the future.
The beauty of this approach is:
- flows in the river basically match what nature has been doing for eons with the exception that the extremes of nature which can have devastating effects are avoided (eg. no flows below 3600 cfs which we know we can live with).
- lake levels should remain within 10ft of full pool even in extreme conditions. And a drop of 10ft, while undesirable from an esthetic stand point, do not destroy the recreational infrastructure for the lakes.
- fresh water which is truly more valuable than gold (eg. look at what is happening in California) is preserved to the maximum extent possible.
While power production quotas may be missed for the Savannah River Basin, power at basically the same price will still be available from the power grid. One way to look at power production is that hydropower is a renewable source of energy like wind and solar. As such hydropower should only be expected when nature provides adequate rain. As with wind and solar, when nature doesn't cooperate you need to look to other sources of power production rather than destroy precious fresh water.
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