As long as the Corps holds to their current thinking on meeting power production quotas there is no hope of avoiding devastating damage to recreation from droughts regardless of how the current drought control studies play out. This becomes obvious when you look at the refusal by the corps to drop releases to 3600cfs because of its impact on power production. We already know from repeated operation of months on end that the system will tolerate 3600cfs but the Corps refuses to drop releases to 3600cfs at the outset of a drought. Their reasoning is this would prevent them from meeting their power quotas. Hence even if the current studies show less than 3600cfs can be tolerated by the environment, Corps power quotas will prevent us benefiting from this information.
The basic problem is insistence on using more water than nature provides to produce power. Wind and solar are both limited to what nature provides. We need to do the same with hydropower to prevent wasting valuable reserves of fresh water and destruction to our recreational infrastructure. Somehow we need to get congress and/or the corps thinking the same way. Simply limiting power production to the amount of water provided by rain would go a long way toward protecting our recreational infrastructure and it would prevent the horrendous waste of fresh water reserves that happens currently.
