SHORT TERM CONCERNS

We have three unresolved concerns for the short term;
1) Gresham Barrett has requested that the Corps return to 3100cfs for the months of April and May. Since the Sturgeon spawning season has passed and the weather is not that hot yet this seems to be within the realm of satisfying all the real and imagined ill effects of 3100cfs on downstream interests. Hence we are hopeful that the Corps will continue their positive efforts toward relieving the drought situation around our lakes.

2) The outdated drought plan that we are laboring under specifies that the flow rates be stepped up as Lake Thurmond reaches 2ft above each trigger level. We need to get the Corps to agree to leave flow rates as low as possible (currently 3600cfs) until the lakes refill. Delaying recovery of our lakes is a real cost of billions of dollars while returning to higher flow rates has no equivalent monetary benefit. And since there are no demonstrable crises downstream with current flow rates, deliberately continuing these losses to lake interests would be foolhardy.

3) The Augusta Canal decreases the flexibility of the Corps in reducing flow rates from the dam when run off from rain swells the river downstream of the shoals. About 1500cfs in river flow is diverted from the shoals to feed the canal. These flows have been needed in the past because Augusta has been getting their drinking water from the canal. Since the city of Augusta has demonstrated the ability to obtain drinking water straight from the river instead of the canal and since the canal would continue to be the attraction it is to Augusta as a slow moving pool, the Corps needs to rethink the way the canal is run before it is restarted. The canal needs to be viewed as a threat to the environmental health of the shoals and the usage should be designed to minimize that threat without requiring such huge flows through the dam.

Long term solutions are needed after the lakes recover. But these three short term considerations will help to make the recovery happen more quickly.