The logic currently being followed demands failure whether you are managing lake levels, finances, church budgets or any venture where the income is limited. As it is now we send 3100cfs downstream regardless of our rainfall. Since we can't make water but rather depend on rainfall for this input we are guaranteed to fail unless the rainfall returns to pre drought levels. And there is no guarantee that previous rainfall levels will return. This serves no one. Rather it destroys now or in the future all interests connected with the lake.
It should be a given that no one should be asked to spend their money for someones elses interests. Yet the residents and businesses around the lake have involuntarily spent millions in real estate, business, and recreational incomes/values to avoid downstream interests from having to spend money to protect them from low water flows.
Admittedly the cost to factories to decrease waste effluents and the cost to others to make up for low river flows may be large, but I doubt these costs would be any larger than the cost of lost real estate values, lost business connected with the lake, and lost recreational incomes. But once these measures are in place droughts will no longer be a threat and everyone in the area will benefit from having a lake that remains at a useable level even at times of a drought.
The other concerns of salt water incursions and effects on wildlife should be dependant on mother nature and not man. These concerns by definition are best served when man's influence is factored out. And a policy that sends downstream the water available from natural rain falls would do just that.
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