Answer to question "what politicians are helping"

Unfortunately the support we are getting is way too timid.  We need someone who will give a much more agressive approach to getting the Corps on track.  Jeff Duncan and Paul Broun are both aware of the problems but they are trying to solve the problem from a timid political approach.  The only way our problem is going to be solved is to tackle it from an engineering stand point.  Playing politics will never get us there because it involves too much compromise. From a strictly engineering standpoint you can be reasonable with the environmental concerns without destroying the lakes.  From a political standpoint you end up compromising with  unfounded fears from "sky is falling" environmentalists         and destroy the lakes.
It is a simple matter of how much water you can release without emptying the lake.  Trying to compromise with this is like trying to spend more money than you make; it never works. The only thing that works is to recognize how much you have to work with and stay inside those boundaries.  We've asked the Corps to back off to the amount of water that nature gives in rain over a years time (this figure is 3600cfs during a major drought).  The environmentalists ask for "more" because some poor critter that has survived for a million years with much less water in a drought might possibly be harmed.  The corps compromises by first waiting until the lake has dropped a bunch of feet before they acknowledge a drought is going on and then, instead of backing off to 3600, they go to 3800cfs.  This sounds good but every 100cfs equals one foot of lake level in a years time so 3800 drops us 2 ft more in a year than 3600cfs.  Any politician approaching this from a political stand point is not going to be able to break this cycle.  We need someone who will draw the line and stop this massive destruction of our lakes.  We have not been able to identify anyone on the political scene who will take such a stance.  When we do we will get behind them 100%.

Summing up where we are from an engineering stand point:

• Anytime the lakes drop 2' the corps needs to immediately go to 3600cfs release rates until the lakes refill.  Instead the Corps has been waiting until they can prove we are in a drought.  What is being missed is the fact that normal releases can be resumed the minute the lakes refill making this change short lived if we are not truly in a drought.
  
• The Corps needs to stop dropping lake levels 4ft (following what they call the rule curve) in the fall.  The original reason for this was to give the lakes enough reserve storage capacity so the lakes do not over fill in the winter/spring rains.  We now have twice the holding capacity as when this rule was set up and backing off to 2' should work as well as 4' did in the past. Recent discussions with the Corps indicate they do not plan to adopt this recommendation.
• The purpose of further studies should be to fully define environmental and recreational impacts of various release rates including rates well below 3600cfs.  Such studies are not needed to make temporary changes to 3600cfs now while we are in the middle of a severe drought.
  
• Until further studies can be completed the Corps needs to go ahead and use the information we gained in the drought of record in 2008 where we discovered that operation at 3600 cfs was satisfactory.   Although the Corps can make such changes on their own as demonstrated in 2008 they have chosen to wait until all environmental groups agree including those that are unrealistic in their demands. This approach always ends up with destruction of our lakes as is proven by what is happening right now.