CORPS CONTINUES TO DEMONSTRATE EXCELLENT CONTROL OF LAKE LEVEL

Looking at release rates I was surprised to see that they are at levels previously reserved for emergency conditions.  I grow hopeful that Col. Tickner is factoring in recreation in managing the Savannah River Basin.   Following previous practices our lakes would be dropping like a rock right now.  But instead the levels are being maintained within 6" of full pool.

It seems to Save Our Lakes Now that this is an excellent way to control the basin:

• River flows are varying the way nature intended rather than being held artificially constant.
• Environmental concerns are protected as long as releases are in excess of the 3600cfs demonstrated to have no substantial environmental impact downstream
• Water quality and water supply needs are also being met at release rates in excess of 3600cfs.
• Destruction of precious fresh water by releasing it to the ocean is being kept to a minimum.
• The dollar value gained by power production is being kept in line with the dollar value lost from decreased real estate values and destruction to recreational infrastructure around the lakes.

Please let Col. Tickner know our thoughts here.  We owe him a tremendous vote of thanks if he is responsible for these improvements.  If the changes are coincidental and not intended, maybe making him aware of our thoughts will help make these changes permanent.

REVISITING THE PROPOSAL FOR 2' WINTER DRAW DOWNS INSTEAD OF 4'

As I'm sure most of you are aware the corps continues to do a sterling job of maintaining lake levels. 
We certainly commend them on this and hope they will not hesitate to go to minimum release rates to hold level as much as possible if we get into another drought.  On a different note, there was an interesting post on Balancing the Basin by Billy Birdwell that could serve as a great argument to go to a 2' drawdown rather than a 4' drawdown in the winters. Quoting from Billy's post

"Our water managers don’t rely solely on computer models or theories, but on decades of working in this basin under a wide range of conditions. They’ve seen floods, droughts, heat waves, ice storms, tropical storms, and years of other weather.

Our water managers are scientist-engineers and draw on the latest scientific methods as well as years of real-world observations to accomplish all their missions in the most efficient way possible. Although they don’t have ‘crystal balls’ to consult, they actually have something better – science tempered with experience and insight."
~Billy Birdwell, Corporate Communications Office

So far as years of real-world observations, from the time Thurmond was built until Hartwell came on the scene a 4' drawdown was used in the winter. The total area rain runoff comes from remains unchanged.  It is the whole basin from the mountains to the Thurmond Dam.  The difference now is that we have both Hartwell and Russell collecting that runoff in addition to Thurmond.  Using that science tempered with experience Billy talks about, a 2' drawdown now should be equivalent to the 4' drawdown used before Hartwell was built.  In other words the amount of runoff remains unchanged but the amount of space to collect that runoff is now twice what it used to be.

HERE WE GO AGAIN ??????

The latest Balancing the Basin which posted a day or two ago indicates we may be destined for more lake level issues.  If I understand what Stan Simpson (a hydrologist for the Savannah District) is saying, the Corps does not plan on holding lake levels the way they have been over the past month or so.  Stan mentions that increased evaporation and uptake by vegetation normally cause the lake to drop as much as 4ft in the summer.  What he does not say is whether the Corps will vary releases down to 3600cfs as necessary to minimize the amount the lakes drop in level.

He mentions power needs but that is not a reason to ignore lake level control for several reasons:

• We are a peaking power supplier rather than continuous power which means long sustained power generation is not the objective. Peaking power demands we have capacity for surges when demands are high.  When the lakes are allowed to drop over 10ft the ability to provide peaking power becomes very limited.
• Meeting a quota for overall generation is essentially an economic issue.  The economics of decreased real estate values and damage to the recreation infrastructure from low lake levels is far greater than the total value of the power generated by our lakes.  According to SEPA we are only one of 8 systems they get power from and they can easily make up for any short falls from us with make up power from the other systems.
• We have come very close to literally destroying our lakes several times.  Should that occur our lakes would no longer be a viable source of power not to mention what happens to all the other aspects of managing the Savannah River Basin.  In short, the Corps rather than the weather would be responsible for a catastrophic failure of the whole system because of their refusal to change the current drought plan.

The corps has demonstrated they are capable of controlling lake levels to very close tolerances.  The problem is the current drought plan does nothing to control lake level.  The lakes have to drop 4ft before any control over release rates is initiated.  And the response to such a drop is much less than has been demonstrated to be feasible. The lakes have to drop 15ft before emergency level control is initiated and by that time destruction of the lakes, one at a time, is imminent.

Lake level control has been outstanding since Colonel Tickner took the reins. Hopefully that will continue.  But the recent posting of Balancing the Basin leaves some doubt as to how the Corps may respond to a drought should one occur.  Please don't hesitate to let Colonel Tickner know how much we appreciate current lake level control and how important it is for him to continue this approach to managing the basin.

HOLD YOUR BREATH.. CURRENT PROJECTIONS LOOK LIKE A BREAK THROUGH

Looking at the current projections for releases from Lake Thurmond and levels for all three lakes I could not believe my eyes.  The Corps plans releases of only 3800cfs from Thurmond through the middle of may and lake levels are all right at full pool.  In the past under similar conditions we saw much higher release rates.  If this means what I think it means the current Corps commander deserves a great big thank you.

MOST RECENT RELEASE OF "BALANCING THE BASIN" SHOWS CORPS INTENTIONS

The most recent release of balancing the basin goes into great detail about how lake levels are managed.  If this truly represents the thinking of the Savannah River Basin Corps' leadership, they fully intend to continue the same drought plan that generated so much destruction in the last decade. In my mind there is no justification for such a refusal to change.  You can claim all kinds of maybe situations that could arrive from change.  But these pale in light of the definite destruction that occurs with no change.

We have accomplished one major feat so far with the efforts of Save Our Lakes Now.  There used to be 10 gross distortions of the truth used to justify the old drought plan.  These never come up any more because one by one we showed the fallacies of these different claims.  For example the dissolved oxygen in the harbor is not affected by release rates.  This is shown by oxygen measurements at Clio upstream of the harbor and the fact that ocean tides overwhelm the impact of inflow from the river.  Another is the fact that any argument about power generation involves straight economics and the destruction to real estate values and the infrastructure for recreation around the lakes is far greater than any money saved from power generation.

We need representation at the meetings where release rates are discussed and we need a congressman that takes no double talk concerning  lake level control .  All the expensive studies that are in place are fine if you want more data.  But you don't need any additional data to understand that our current drought plan is badly flawed.  The data from the past decade combined with good engineering judgment are more than adequate to come up with vast improvements to the drought plan.

YES VIRGINIA, THE CORPS CAN CONTROL LAKE LEVEL

Over the past couple of months the Corps has demonstrated how they can hold lake levels within 6".  But that was because they wanted to in order to help fish spawning.  Our problem is they don't appear to want to hold the level for recreation purposes.

We know, and the Corps has stated in repeated analyses of the impact of release rates, that as long as the release rate out of Thurmond is equal to or greater than 3600 cfs there is no significant environmental impact downstream.  Congress stipulated 30 some years ago that recreation should be protected along with all the other concerns of the Savannah River Basin.  And by recreation they were talking about the huge infrastructure that is associated with lake access and use by the public.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to combine those two pieces of information and justify keeping the lakes full by reducing release rates to as low as 3600cfs to maintain the level.  There will be times when 3600cfs will allow the lake levels to drop more than 6" but not to the catastrophic levels experienced repeatedly over the past decade.

All the arguments against this have one major flaw.  The current drought plan asks that we release more water than nature supplies by rain.  One would think the simple desire to preserve as much fresh water as possible would defeat any such argument.  The Corps knows we should conserve water as much as possible.  They demonstrate this with their water saving hypocrisy in their offices such as waterless urinals.  Release rates of just a few hundred cfs above 3,600 dwarf the amount of water being saved with the best of water saving tactics.  No city downstream with control over watering lawns or using waterless urinals like the ones in use by the Corps can begin to make up for the waste we repeatedly see when the Corps refuses to drop release rates to a minimum during a drought.

In the humble opinion of this author, man is not smart enough to do a better job than nature does. We can take out the ravages of severe flooding and even severe drought but trying to run nature like a piece of machinery is futile. A prime example of what I am saying is to look out West at Lake Powel which has been literally destroyed by continually releasing more water than nature provides.  The situation out there is so bad they are even trucking salmon to the ocean which is another example of the futility of trying to out smart nature.

SOLUTION TO LAKE LEVEL PROBLEMS

Ultimately the Colonel in control of the Savannah River Basin is the best person to correct our lake level problems.  If he decides to protect recreation at the same level he handles the other responsibilities Congress has given the Corps for managing our lakes, he can control lake levels well inside +/- 5ft by decreasing flows to as little as 3600cfs anytime the lakes drop more than a foot.  As stated repeatedly in Corps documents concerning release rates from Lake Thurmond, 3600cfs has no significant environmental impact on the river below the lakes.  Colonel Tickner may well do just that.  Time will tell.  He has maintained excellent level control so far but we won't know for sure until we hit a real dry spell similar to the droughts experienced repeatedly over the past decade.

If you wonder whether that kind of level control is unreasonable, look at what the Corps is doing right now.  They are maintaining lake levels to within +/- 6 inches for a couple of months while fish spawning is in progress.

But what if the Colonel ignores recreation the way we have seen in the past.  Then we need a congressman with a willingness to bring this to a stop.  Looking at the congressional race in Georgia there are two gentlemen who could make a real difference.  One is Gary Gerrard who is a no nonsense lawyer.  He has told us that if elected he will make sure lake stakeholders get representation at the meetings where lake levels and release rates are decided by the Corps.  The other is Stephen Simpson who goes even further than that.  He understands the mechanics involved and agrees with our suggested solution to the problem.  Furthermore Stephen has powerful contacts in the army who would be more than willing to help with our problem.  Whether you live in SC or GA do what you can to support one or the other of these.  It would be a shame to have one of the other candidates win because non of them has expressed any concern for or knowledge about our lake problems.