STUDIES NOT NEEDED TO CHANGE DROUGHT PLAN

For what seems like an eternity we have been led to believe that a phase 2 study is needed before the drought plan can be changed. Sounds very similar to the thinking that just trashed the oil pipeline from Canada. What is needed instead is strong logical leadership that provides good balance between all the different responsibilities the Corps has regarding the Lakes of the Savannah River Basin. The problem with a study is how it is interpreted. As with the oil pipeline, studies were not the answer. Logic or lack thereof led to the decisions that were made for the pipeline.

Logic for the Lakes says it is foolish to try to send more water downstream to the ocean than comes in from rain. This is true since neither the Corps nor any of the rest of us can create water. Mother nature has 100% control over how much water is available. Once that is recognized the rest becomes a simple decision on what period of time you want to balance releases with rainfall. Day to day balancing would mean the lakes remain totally full and whatever comes in from rain daily is sent downstream. Annual balancing means looking at how much water comes in over a years time and matching it.

Selfish desire to keep the lakes totally full with no consideration for the folks downstream would go with the first option and keep the lakes totally full. To a certain extent this could be justified since the river would behave exactly the way it has since time began and experience droughts and floods as a natural event. On the other hand balancing the lakes on an annual basis is much fairer to downstream interests. This approach totally eliminates both drought and flooding in the sense of what the river used to experience.

These facts are all that is needed to come to a logical decision on how to manage the lakes. Desire on the part of anyone downstream for more water is like asking for more money than you have in the bank. It simply will not work. Besides destroying the lake by releasing more water than is available destroys power production, recreation, and eventually water quality, water supply, and all the other issues the Corps is responsible for.

Studies have a place. But it is not in the decision process for drought control. Rather they are great to decipher what different rainfall conditions do to the system. For example saying that you want more water held in the lakes than comes down from rain would lead to horrendous flooding upstream of the dams. Studies of what the impact is on the environment around the lakes is not needed to tell us that such a plan will not work. The same is true in balancing flows based on what is happening downstream.