The Army Corps of Engineers claims they are following guidelines laid down by congress and the states for controlling water discharges from Lake Thurmond. Those guidelines supposedly protect real estate values, business interests, and recreational interests around the lake as well as the many concerns downstream where minimum flows are needed for water quality, salt water incursions, protecting certain wildlife from extinction, etc. However all one has to do is look at the tens of millions of dollars lost in interests around the lake and compare this to the zero dollar losses from downstream concerns to realize the Corps is only doing lip service to lake interests.
If we continue to say nothing there is no reason for any of this to change. The only way this is going to change is for us to make our displeasure known to our congressmen and state governors. And we are going to have to be assertive or they will simply ignore us. Put yourself in the shoes of the congressmen for example. They know the minute the businesses downstream have to spend money to dilute or decrease their waste releases they will be very assertive. The same is true for water quality, extinction concerns, salt water incursions, etc. In other words we are the less painful option when it comes to who to displease.
On the other hand we have the biggest clout. We can through the news media make the world aware of our displeasure and we can refuse to vote for incumbents who won't help our cause. Additionally we can make the Corps' life miserable from pushing our rights. They are being totally negligent when they allow marked navigational ways to become hazardous from submerged trees and other obstacles. And they need to be spelling out all the options for correcting the various problems rather than simply try to solve everything with water releases. For example they can list for congressional concern and guidance many other options that are obvious to them as engineers but uncomfortable to discuss as long as we are quiet.
Additionally to create concerns beyond ours those of us who live on the lake in McCormick can as a group demand a review of our property taxes at the state level. This in view of the fact that the lake is no longer useable and the inflated property values due to the lake are no longer valid.
