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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WHAT GOOD LAKE MANAGEMENT WOULD LOOK LIKE

Up to now we have simply quoted back to the Corps of Engineers what their own guidelines say for protecting recreation interests with a more reasonable drought plan.  Now that a new administration is taking charge let's take a quick look at real protection for Lakes Thurmond, Hartwell, and Russell. The basis for said protection is ending the horrific waste of fresh water and maintaining the lakes as full as possible.  At present the Corps is going at this backwards and we come close to destroying our lakes every few years as droughts occur.

To end this repeated destruction let's try a different approach:

• Tighten or eliminate the discharge of harmful pollutants to the Savannah River from all the plants below Augusta, GA. Instead of simply pumping pollutants produced by these plants directly to the river, use basic Chemical and Civil Engineering to get the levels to the point that the water is still useable downstream even during extreme droughts. As an example modern day sewage plants release potable water through such measures.
• Use the same guidelines for hydro power generation that are used for wind and solar.  Said power should be dependent on rain supply.
• Store water as necessary and modify take off points from the Savannah River for cities downstream to ensure adequate water supply in severe droughts.
• Stop trying to artificially improve on nature with controlled river flows that exceed rain inputs. Benefit to people should be the basis (eg. flood control) rather than trying to protect some plant or animal even when such protection is damaging to the public.

Using this approach would allow us to keep our lakes basically full at all times and prevent the damaging effects of ridiculous EPA or power production guidelines. Not only would this approach benefit the Savannah River Basin but it would eliminate the horrible disasters being experienced with lakes out West.

WHERE ARE OUR POLITCIANS NOW THAT THE LAKES ARE DOWN AGAIN

Apparently our politicians who vociferously protested the low lake levels a couple of years ago are not aware that this is happening again.  Perhaps they are too tied up with the upcoming elections. I suggest we all contact them and make them aware that the Corps has once again refused to decrease release rates in time to help avoid drastic drops in lake levels.  They need to hear how bad the levels are.  They need to hear that all the excuses the Corps used to use as to why they could not decrease release rates sooner have been debunked. At one time the Corps used to try to confuse the politicians with 10 excuses.  One by one we have shown these don't hold water (pun intended).

CHALLENGE TO CORPS CONCERNING LAKE LEVELS

FOLLOWING IS A COMMENT PLACED ON THE RECENT BALANCING THE BASIN.  IT IS PERTINENT TO THE PROBLEMATIC DROUGHT PLAN THE CORPS INSISTS ON USING AND MIRRORS THE THOUGHTS OF SAVE OUR LAKES NOW:

The Corps with their work following hurricane Matthew has once again demonstrated their capability to do the job well.  If they would now address the yo yo lake levels that keep destroying the reputation of the SRB from the stand point of recreation they could again claim a great victory.  All the impediments are now out of the way.  Past experience from droughts have demonstrated that 3600cfs is safe to downstream interests and SEPA admits they do not need the corps to hit the arbitrary power quotas which are based on normal rainfall.  Now all the Corps needs to do is take charge and decrease release rates to 3600cfs (lower may be possible after the drought study is complete) anytime the lakes can not be maintained at full pool. We look forward to that time.