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.