Saturday, January 1, 2011

TIME FOR ACTION HAS COME

The Corps has made it clear that they do not intend to get away from the current drought plan which has almost destroyed the Savannah River Basin several times. Basically the problem is they bankrupt the system by "spending" more water than nature provides during a drought. We've asked the Corps by who's authority they are sending more water to the ocean than is provided by mother nature. We've not gotten a response. We feel certain there is no such authorization.

If you look at the five lakes other than the Savannah River Basin in this drought footprint, they are all within 2ft of full pool. Our lakes are down over 6ft. Even Lake Lanier is within 2ft of full. Hence the drought is not the reason our lakes are low. Rather it is the Corps' management of water releases from Thurmond Dam.

If you talk to the Corps they will explain that the sturgeon need so much water, the city of Augusta needs so much, there is dissolved oxygen to consider, etc. etc. What they fail to mention is that these needs can only be met as long as we have lakes with water in them. If we exhaust these lakes none of these needs can be met. What they also fail to mention is that we ran a 14 month test in which releases were held to that coming in from rain and everyone's needs downstream were met including the sturgeon.

We also learned recently that the Corps has a plan to destroy the lakes one at a time (Russell first, then Thurmond, etc.) if a drought lasts long enough to make it impossible to make the releases specified in their current plan. It makes a lot more sense to match the rain fall over a years time and never come to such an Armageddon type situation.

A new advisory council was set up recently for input to the SC DNR and DHEC by a representative group of stakeholders that represent all Savannah River Basin interests from the mountains to the sea. I have submitted a request to this group to consider the current drought plan at their next meeting and formulate a recommendation on how the current drought plan should be modified.

In view of what a few people in the Tea Party were able to accomplish in the last election, we can get this changed. If the newly formed SRBAC can not help we can simply raise our voices until we are heard. You will be hearing more on this in the near future.