Comment Directed against Corps in recent Balancing the Basin

As a stakeholder in the SRB i disagree with your statement that you are prevented by law from holding a release rate of 3600cfs without a TA. When the Corps drew up the plan to destroy the lakes one at a time (Russell, followed by Thurmond, followed by Hartwell) in the evernt of a drought that goes past the conservation pool limitations, you specified you would use a release rate of 3600cfs throughout which you declared to have no significant environmental impact and therefore no TA was required for this addendum to the plan.
As a stakeholder i recognize you have no intention of protecting recreation which is a responsibility given the Corps by Congress back around 1985. First you deny consideration of the primary factors in recreation namely all the homes around the lakes and campgrounds and marinas. By denying those you also prevent any other sources of recreation such as hotels etc. by making our reputation so bad no such business would ever consider an investment here. Second you use every excuse in the book (power generation was used this past summer) to justify your release rates. Strict adherence to the drought plan is in play at the moment. Years past the corps claimed all kinds of stakeholders such as Fish and Wildlife and SC DNR refused you permission to decrease rates but in each case as we asked these stakeholders they denied any such restriction being placed on you by them. Years past you claimed dissolved oxygen in the harbor was a controlling factor but when we researched that we found the ocean tides control DO rather than river inflows. In business and industry such behaviour would be designated as incompetent if due to ignorance or dishonest if deliberate attempts to mislead lake stakeholders. Neither is complimentary of the Corps and both represent a need to make a huge change in the way the basin is being operated.
The very title of Engineer tells me that you are not restricted to following a written procedure without question. That title indicates you should be advising Congress of what changes are needed rather than waiting for instructions from Congress.

PERTINENT COMMENT ON BALANCING THE BASIN

If you read the comments on Balancing The Basin you have already seen this.  If not you may be interested in an exchange from a member of Save Our Lakes Now with the Corps. This comes after numerous back and forth comments between one member of Save Our Lakes Now and the Corps:


First and foremost you have abandoned protecting recreation (meaning the full
infrastructure that provides for recreation on our lakes) when you allow the lakes to drop 10 ft or 8 ft and make no effort to get the lakes back to normal fill levels. Second, you or someone has changed the trigger levels shown on your site to conform with what you are now saying which is dishonest. Third, trying to use flow rates in the broad river to tell you whether the basin is in drought is absurd. Lake levels give a very accurate picture of where we are in a drought and are far more reliable. It is my hope that Save Our Lakes NOw will continue to bring your demonstrated refusal to protect Recreation to the attention of our politicians until we get relief from your lack of respect for lake interests.

CORPS IGNORING RECREATION CONCERNS

The Corps has just increased release rates from Thurmond from 3600cfs to 4000cfs which is way beyond what is called for in the drought plan.  This is destructive to the Recreational Infrastructure of our lakes and is indicative of the fact that the Corps has no desire to protect Recreation interests.

In the past when we've pleaded for the Corps to decrease release rates during severe droughts we've been told  that the Corps  cannot deviate from the guidelines of the current drought plan.  Now they are proving this to be a lie. With the lakes in severe drought conditions the Corps is adding to that damage by increasing release rates to the river from the 3600cfs called for in the drought plan to 4000cfs.

Currently Lake Interests have no voice with the Corps. We desperately need assistance from our congressmen or governors to get the Corps to listen to reason.  If you agree that this needs to change make your thoughts known to congress and your state governor.  Talking to the Corps appears to be a waste of time.  They show no intention of listening to recreational concerns.

COPY OF PERTINENT COMMENT TO CORPS POST ON FACE BOOK

The following comment was offered recently on the corps post of Balancing the Basin.

The climatologists seem to be working hard.  But what about the engineers who are supposed to protect recreation along with a number of other responsibilities?  The current drought plan has destroyed recreation repeatedly since 2002 and the engineers with the corps have yet to utilize the experience gained from those failures to optimize the drought plan. The studies mentioned repeatedly cannot add anything to the experience gained from repeated lengthy operation at 3600 cfs regarding effects of operating at this release level. From an engineering standpoint there is ample data for modifying the drought plan safely.  Examples of modifications needed are stop releases above 3600cfs when lake lavels cannot be maintained at full pool and stop releases to the river when rains below Thurmond dam are supplying adeqate water for downstream interests. With the expertise the corp hydrologists have i feel sure even further improvements can be made without doing damage downstream.  (posted by Jerry Clontz on 1/27)

QUICK TEST TO DETERMINE WHETHER CORPS IS INTERESTED IN PROTECTING RECREATION

There is a quick question you can ask to find out whether the Corps is interested in protecting recreation.  This same question needs to be asked of your congressman to see if he is even trying to help. The river below Thurmond dam has been swollen numerous times from recent rain events.  The Corps has full capability to keep up with river flows and/or levels. 

Here is my question.  How many times has the Corps stopped releases from Thurmond to let the lakes recover from horrible lake levels caused by the recent drought. The answer, the Corps made no attempt to protect us and simply continued unnecessary releases that could have made a huge difference had they been stopped.

I don't know why the Corps doesn't try to protect the recreational infrastructure but it is obvious they have no desire to do so.  I don't know why our congressmen aren't insisting the Corps use the information gathered from the repeated droughts this century to improve our situation.  If  I ask them by myself nothing will change.  The tea party made huge changes by insisting on change at every congressional town hall and similar meetings.  We need to do the same.

LETTER FROM SAVE OUR LAKES NOW TO SHANE MASSEY, MAJORITY LEADER OF SC SENATE

Shane,

I recognize there are many issues you are burdened with but I can think of none that is more important to your constituency than getting the Corps management of Lake Thurmond straightened out.  Save Our Lakes Now has finally killed all the lies and excuses the Corps used to use as to why they follow the current drought plan.  We are now down to one excuse they use to destroy our lakes every couple of years.  They claim they have to meet their power quotas which is not true.  We’ve talked to top officials with SEPA who insist we keep their names confidential for obvious reasons and they assure us that any time we reduce Lake Thurmond releases to 3600cfs they are fine because they have many sources for power to their grid at basically the same price to the end user. To a large extent the rural communities you are associated with are starving because of the failure of the Corps to maintain reasonable control of lake levels. Instead of the explosive growth normally associated with recreational areas there is absolutely no growth occurring for the communities around Lake Thurmond.

We need to stop fooling around with the Corps and demand that they reduce releases from Thurmond to 3600cfs anytime they are unable to hold the lakes at full pool  We also need to talk to DNR about decreasing waste releases from the Augusta factories and businesses along the Savannah so we can drop even lower in release rates.  What the DNR and the Corps are not telling you is that water users such as Savannah have ways to live with release rates even lower than 3600cfs. They already plan to build a reservoir at Savannah for reasons other than water supply which would permit living with lower release quantities from the standpoint of water supply at times of drought. And lower release limits for the plants along the Savannah would permit release rates even lower than 3600cfs from the standpoint of water quality.  I am a Chemical Engineer and fully familiar with reducing waste levels for chemical processes. Basically we were always able to reduce effluent wastes when asked to do so.

You may feel this is outside your authority. But I feel certain demands from the state of SC for changes to the drought plan for the Savannah River Basin would get the attention of congress.  This is especially true right now as the new administration takes office.

Jerry Clontz

Save Our Lakes Now

803-648-9864

CORPS SHOWING TOTAL DISRESPECT FOR RECREATION

If we assume the job of the Corps is truly engineering rather than operators blindly following a written procedure, we have to assume the Corps is failing totally in their management of the Savannah River Basin.  The damages they are doing with lake levels is comparable to the way the EPA shut down coal mining.  Only difference is the methodology of the EPA with coal has some saving grace if you are a environmental or global warming addict whereas there is no saving grace for the way the Corps keeps destroying our basin.

For the sake of brevity I will site just a few glaring engineering omissions.

1. right now the rivers below Thurmond dam are swelled from recent rains. Contradictory to good engineering practice the corps continues to release 3600cfs rather than shut down releases for a while to allow the lakes to recover.
2. previously when the lakes started down below full pool the corps held to elevated release rates rather than conserving lake levels by dropping releases to the minimum demonstrated to be safe for downstream interests.
3. in their planning for the future with the harbor expansion the corps totally ignored the fact that the Augusta lock and dam needs repair to avoid severe damages upstream.  Rather than concern themselves with recreational and Augusta interests they did extensive planning for building a fish ladder.

These omissions by engineers in the business world would be subject to law suit and the engineers involved would be reprimanded severely and probably lose their jobs. We need to hold the Corps to the same level of professional performance or eliminate the word engineer in their title and appoint engineers to oversee the work of the Corps.

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