PROPOSED SOLUTION TO LAKE LEVEL PROBLEM

I know most of you are looking at ways to solve the problems at Lakes Thurmond and Hartwell. While you have your thinking caps on let me step outside the box and propose a solution to this problem that gets us out of the problem quickly and keeps us there. At first glance this will sound wild eyed and crazy but It seems to me that the following would work:

1) Shut down Russell and drain it into Thurmond to get the lakes back up as far as possible. Leave Russell down until Thurmond refills.

2) Determine release rate requirements from rainfall averages rather than downstream needs. Any downstream needs that exceed this rate need to be corrected from downstream engineering rather than increasing water releases. Decrease release rates to the average in from rain past 30 days and modify each 2 weeks if any particular month falls way outside the average.

3) Look at further decreases below average rainfall to refill both Thurmond and Hartwell

4) Once the lakes refill assume ESA is met as long as releases = lowest monthlly average rainfall of past 12 months.

5) Look at building artificial gravel beds if further protection of Sturgeon is desired rather than try to flood existing beds with flows above that available from rain.

6) Look at leaving Russell down or if it is restarted rethink the fish carnage being experienced with reverse pumping. A NOAA official is quoted as admitting the reverse pumping at Russell will destroy the sport fishing on Thurmond. The court hearings on this should be revisited with input from the court findings out west where back pumping was ruled out because of the devastation it caused for the fish population at that lake.

Right now we are letting the tail wag the dog. The Corps looks at all the downstream issues anyone wants to bring up and literally solves the problem by pouring water on it. Doing it this way the lakes end up destroyed and we all end up with a disaster. If instead the Corps used the basis I describe above the lakes would never be destroyed and all downstream interests would be getting the maximum benefit provided by God that you can get from the lakes without destroying them.