IF CORPS WON'T COOPERATE, WHAT NEXT

It is becoming obvious that the Corps is not going to do their job and study the various options to come up with a reasonable solution to the problems along the Savannah River during a drought. All the Corps is doing at present is acting as technicians collecting water flow data. What is desperately needed is a study of costs to correct drought problems via downstream engineering options versus the costs of destroying lake interests when levels drop more than 5 ft.

Since the Corps is not doing their job as engineers to determine optiomum solutions, why not hire an outside engineering firm to do an objective study of the problem. Our congressmen should be able to do this. Since the problem is nationwide wherever the Corps controls lakes, a national study may well be warranted. If such a study is initiated some of the ground rules should be:

1) never let lake levels drop more than 5 ft unless and until the losses to lake interests are balanced against the cost to engineer solutions downstream.

2) environmental concerns should revert to conditions prior to building the dams at Lake Thurmond and Lake Hartwell since these concerns are defined as eliminating man's impact on mother nature. In other words passing down the amount of water coming in from rain meets those conditions and their is no reason from the stand point of environmental concerns to pass on more water than comes from natural rain fall during a major drought.

3) all parties with concerns such as diluting wastes, avoiding massive fish kills from low oxygen levels, obtaining drinkable water, etc. should be asked to determine the cost to engineer a solution with only the water coming downstream from natural rainfall during a drought. These costs can then be used to determine an optimum balance between lake interest losses from depleting the lakes and engineering other solutions downstream.

4) the true cost to generate power when the lakes are depleted by more than 5 ft should include the massive losses to lake interests from destroying the lakes. If so power generaton when the lakes are depleted more than 5ft would be uneconomical and Power generation would only be permitted when it does not require further depletion of lake level.

5) no one should be asked to suffer major financial expense without full justification by weighing all reasonable engineering solutions. Hence the firm or commission doing such a study should be required to justify their conclusions with all concerned parties. And their findings need to be discussed openly with representatives from all concerned parties at reasonable check points time wise while the study progresses.

We need to urge our congressmen to initiate an independant engineering study of lake level controls and we need to do so quickly. With the current Corps leadership we could literally lose our lakes in the next few years. Please do not forget that the Colonel currently in charge stated at the meeting in McCormick recently that the lakes may go back to original creek beds if the drought continues. We need to act together and act quickly. Lakes Thurmond and Hartwell could become horrible memories if we don't.