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.