The Corps has just announced with great excitement changes they plan to make to the drought plan. Matter of fact they are having a big meeting to discuss this with the public tomorrow night in Toccoa, GA. The excitement comes from the fact that they are raising the levels where release rates are decreased during droughts. While this is a move in the right direction their reasoning is based on flawed assumptions and basically amounts to nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
They claim to be balancing the economic impact on hydropower against that of recreation. There are two major problems with their reasoning. First their is no economic impact on hydropower from droughts. According to the South Eastern Power Association (SEPA) it doesn't matter to them where they are obtaining power from within the 8 reservoir systems they draw hydropower from. When we are in drought most of the others are not and our loss in production can easily be made up from the others. Second the economic impact on recreation is based on badly flawed data. The Corps tried to measure the economic impact of low lake levels but did so during a time of repeated low lake levels that have destroyed our reputation on level control. That is like trying to measure the impact on the dollar value of a car from a bad ding when the car is already full of dings. You can only get a true measure when you look at a time when the car is in like new condition.
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Simply looking at the waste of fresh water when you send more water to the river (and hence the ocean) than is available from rain says we need to reduce releases to the minimum possible anytime the lakes cannot be held to full pool due to drought. Just 100cfs released unnecessarily amounts to about 60million gallons of water being thrown away daily. This tells me that we need to go to the minimum demonstrated safe release rate of 3600cfs as soon as the lakes can no longer be held to full pool due to a drought. And we need to look at whether even lower release rates would be acceptable. For the benefit of those who feel dropping all the way to 3600cfs is too much, stop and think of what the river used to be like during droughts before the dams were built. This is not denying the river water. Rather it is guaranteeing adequate water even in times of severe drought.
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Thursday, June 15, 2017
CURRENT DROUGHT CONTROL BY CORPS TOTALLY ILLOGICAL
Over the past 15 years the rationale for the Corps continuing our horrible drought control plan is that they have to treat all stakeholders fairly. Initially there were over 10 excuses and erroneous reasons for not changing the plan but they have all been debunked. Now the defense against changing the plan and responding more quickly to drought conditions by way of reduced releases is the need to be fair to river stakeholders. This is the only claim remaining that has even a sound of validity. While it may be OK in telling kindergarteners to share, we are talking about something that is far too valuable for such an argument.
Let's take selfish interests completely out of the picture and relook at this. We are talking one lake of over 270,000 acres and another at least half that large. Dropping these lakes any more than is absolutely necessary is criminal when you look at the amount of fresh water involved. Every drop of water released beyond that coming down from rain is a horrible and dangerous practice. Basically what Save Our Lakes Now is saying is any time the lakes drop below full pool (too little rain coming in to hold lake level) we need to reduce releases to the absolute minimum that has been demonstrated to work downstream. 3600cfs has been demonstrated to work repeatedly in recent droughts and the Corps even stated that there is no significant environmental impact from lowering release rates to this level (statement was made to justify no TA needed for their Armageddon plan for destroying the lakes one by one in a drought that exceeds our conservation pool provisions). Hence, until better data showing even less works, we need to immediately go to 3600cfs when the lakes can no longer be maintained at full pool.
Limiting my arguments to pro river stakeholder interests, anything above the minimum tolerable release rate puts them in danger of literally losing their fresh water supplies. It's fine to argue about wanting more water running in the river as long as the lakes have water. But if that ends, river stakeholders are the ones that will be destroyed. It's sort of like balancing your bank account. It's nice to spend a little more money than the minimum needed right up to the time you go bankrupt. Unfortunately following that, their is no further discussion.
Let's take selfish interests completely out of the picture and relook at this. We are talking one lake of over 270,000 acres and another at least half that large. Dropping these lakes any more than is absolutely necessary is criminal when you look at the amount of fresh water involved. Every drop of water released beyond that coming down from rain is a horrible and dangerous practice. Basically what Save Our Lakes Now is saying is any time the lakes drop below full pool (too little rain coming in to hold lake level) we need to reduce releases to the absolute minimum that has been demonstrated to work downstream. 3600cfs has been demonstrated to work repeatedly in recent droughts and the Corps even stated that there is no significant environmental impact from lowering release rates to this level (statement was made to justify no TA needed for their Armageddon plan for destroying the lakes one by one in a drought that exceeds our conservation pool provisions). Hence, until better data showing even less works, we need to immediately go to 3600cfs when the lakes can no longer be maintained at full pool.
Limiting my arguments to pro river stakeholder interests, anything above the minimum tolerable release rate puts them in danger of literally losing their fresh water supplies. It's fine to argue about wanting more water running in the river as long as the lakes have water. But if that ends, river stakeholders are the ones that will be destroyed. It's sort of like balancing your bank account. It's nice to spend a little more money than the minimum needed right up to the time you go bankrupt. Unfortunately following that, their is no further discussion.
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
POOR CONTROL ADDS UP OVER TIME
Just like a carpenters level, lake level is an accurate measure of where we are in a drought. But the Corps insists on ignoring that and using weird bases for release rates such as inflows from the Broad River. Something along the lines of when inflows from the Broad are less than 10% of normal they respond with certain release rates. Excuse my French but using this instead of lake level is the height of stupidity. When the lakes cannot be held at full pool we are in a drought or the effects of a drought and release rates need to be held to a minimum until the lakes refill.
The corps was guilty for years of using misleading information to justify their poor performance with drought management. Over the last 10 years we got rid of all those erroneous claims one by one. But now we are left with downright stubborn refusal to use common logic to minimize the damage to lake levels from droughts. Insisting on release rates of 4,000 and 3800 versus 3600 while in the middle of a drought has cost over a foot of lake level in the current drought. Refusing to restrict flows to 3600 immediately when lake levels can no longer be held at full pool has cost many more feet of lake level. And refusal to stop releases when the river downstream is flooding has cost still more loss of level.
If the Colonel were judged for his handling of Recreation during droughts in the same manner as a CEO handling profits during difficult times he would have been fired for incompetence years ago.
The corps was guilty for years of using misleading information to justify their poor performance with drought management. Over the last 10 years we got rid of all those erroneous claims one by one. But now we are left with downright stubborn refusal to use common logic to minimize the damage to lake levels from droughts. Insisting on release rates of 4,000 and 3800 versus 3600 while in the middle of a drought has cost over a foot of lake level in the current drought. Refusing to restrict flows to 3600 immediately when lake levels can no longer be held at full pool has cost many more feet of lake level. And refusal to stop releases when the river downstream is flooding has cost still more loss of level.
If the Colonel were judged for his handling of Recreation during droughts in the same manner as a CEO handling profits during difficult times he would have been fired for incompetence years ago.
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