WHO IS THE MORE REASONABLE CONCERNING DROUGHT MANAGEMENT

When you study how the Corps is managing the lakes during a drought and the controversies associated with their methodology you will find there are two distinct approaches that are being recommended. The first one which is the heavy hitter in the room is espoused by the environmentalists and the second is from the residents and stakeholders around the lakes. All the other interests, power producers, water suppliers, industries along the Savannah River, etc. are basically OK with the approaches of either of these groups as long as they are not too extreme.



To environmentalists interference by man with Mother Nature is bad. Many environmentalists would prefer there be no dams because by definition a dam is man interfering with nature. You would think the ultimate answer for this group would be to let the lakes simply overflow as it rains which would return the river below the dams to its original flows and keep the lakes full. This of course would be like manna from heaven for the residents and stakeholders around the lakes because the lakes would remain full even during a drought. But this would be devastating to the river in that flows would drop to practically nothing at times



Contradictory to this doctrine of avoiding man interfering with Mother Nature, now that the dams have been built these same environmental groups suddenly think man is wiser than Mother Nature. They want to manipulate the flows of the Savannah River. They are concerned about how much water flow is needed to keep all the critters that live in the river from suffering the ravages of drought. Residents and stakeholders around the lakes are sympathetic to these concerns but they want to keep releases from the dams reasonable so the lakes are not destroyed. Reasonable to them is to accept the fact that the river below the dams and all its critters have survived for over a million years without help from man. Release rates that do not destroy the lakes should be more than sufficient for critters that are used to much less at times of drought. At the very least if you do not balance water in from rain with water out from the dams on a daily basis, you should balance it over the course of a year.



Summarizing from the perspective of a Lake Resident and stakeholder, the current release rates are based on what someone behind a desk thinks the river critters need. Instead they should be based on what Nature provides in rain. Destroying the lakes benefits no one because eventually that leads to no control of river flows. It’s very similar to working a budget. The fact that you want something is not a good basis for managing your bank account. You have to always take into account how much money you have coming in versus how much you are spending or you go broke.