We watched and watched to see if our new Colonel was truly a lake advocate as he claimed coming in. Now it is obvious he is not. Since early in June our release rates have been ridiculous when you consider the inflows. The amount of fresh water being thrown away is unforgiveable. Further we see no justification for such releases other than possibly meeting SEPA quotas.
This writer sees power production quotas that cause releases in excess of inflows as unjustifiable. First there are many other lakes that are not in drought conditions where SEPA can obtain hydro power. And second any savings in power costs obtained in this manner come at the expense of our recreational infrastructure. Just the financial impact on real estate values exceeds any money that may be saved in this manner. How can one justify cost savings to SEPA at the cost of the many people who own homes around the lakes.
The Corps claims incorrectly that lake levels do not impact real estate. Rather than look at the impact on lake side real estate they did a study that looked at the impact on whole counties. Additionally their studies did not take into account the lag time involved for real estate values to recover from a drought when these occur repeatedly over a 10 year time period.
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