APPARENTLY I SPOKE TOO SOON

It appears Colonel Griffin is not the Lake Advocate we were hoping for.  The release rates from Thurmond are being increased to 4800cfs with the lakes starting to drop significantly.  Why anyone feels that is necessary is beyond my comprehension:

• there's not a river anywhere that doesn't have widely varying flows so amount of water to the river is not a valid reason
• increasing the release rates to 4800cfs does nothing for dissolved oxygen to Augusta or in the harbor
• fish and wildlife do just fine at 3600cfs
• water supply to cities downstream is OK at 3600 cfs based on past experience
• water quality was never a problem at 3600 cfs in the past
• navigation and flood control are not effected

Based on these observations the only responsibility assigned the corps that may benefit is power production.  But that is a non plus situation when you realize that SEPA can get power at the same cost from other lakes in the grid or at slightly elevated cost from other sources.  Besides it is ridiculous to save a few pennies on power at the expense of huge costs to the people who built homes along side the lake for the purpose of recreation.  It's just not fair for one group to suffer great losses for minor gains to another group.

Perhaps the greatest rationale against increasing releases to 1,200 cfs above the rates demonstrated to be safe in the past is the huge waste of fresh water.  Everywhere else people seem to think conserving fresh water is extremely important.  I've even seen waterless urinals (gee I think that was at the Corps headquarters at the Thurmond dam) designed to cut down on waste of fresh water. There are no urinals that can compare to the huge waste represented by 1,200cfs which equals 103,680,000 cubic foot a day. Ask the people of California what they think about this.  Similar behavior by groups like the Savannah District Corps is what caused their recent water crisis.

FINALLY

The new Colonel with the Corps of Engineers announced when he came on board that he was a lake advocate.  Apparently he really is. We have experienced unprecedented release rates of 3800cfs from Lake Thurmond (3600 or 3800 cfs release rate, depending on who you talk to, is minimum demonstrated to have no significant environmental impact) for 9 days now and our lakes are within a foot of full pool even though we are experiencing a drought. I personally would like to thank Colonel Marvin Griffin for making this happen.  I did a little research and found his email address.  It is sas.cesas-de@usace.army.mil.

The Savannah River Basin with its 3 lakes has always been an excellent spot for recreational interests.  But the repeated droughts since the turn of the century has taken a huge toll on our reputation.  It may take 2 to 3 years to recover but finally we have someone in Savannah who understands and appears to be willing to make this happen.