LEADERSHIP DESPERATELY NEEDED TO END LAKE PROBLEM

I spent quite some time on the phone with a representative of Gresham Barrett's office who is following the lake problem. I became quite agitated and lost my cool as the discussion continued. Afterwards I tried to analyse why I had lost my cool. It then became ovious why this problem continues with the lakes. Our leaders are not personally suffering the consequences of the devastation occurring with the lakes and because of this they don't have the passion and drive needed to solve the problem.

The conversation went something like "the Corps can't do what is right because the wildlife and environmental groups dictate what has to be done with river flows". "Nothing can be done about it because of the ways the laws are written". My personal reaction was that we are in a crisis situation and simply to follow the dictates of one group who is obviously being totally unreasonable is ridiculous. Obviously Mr Barrett's representative did not agree with this thinking but that is because they are not personally involved. If someone was shutting down Mr. Barrett's office or destroying the value of his residential property he would be more inclined to agree with my thinking.

What is needed is someone in the Corps or political leadership who will take it on themselves to order reduced flows at the Thurmond dam and force a showdown with the environmental group that is currently dictating the flows. The environmental arguments would not hold water (excuse the pun) in a legal show down. For example we have had much above the suggested flows in the river because of water not accounted for below the dam. The dam flows could have been shut off completely for a month or so and the river still have plenty of water but no one in a leadership position was interested enough to force this to happen. Furthermore there is no law or reasoning that can require more water downstream than what comes in from rain for environmental concerns since environmental concerns are limited to eliminating man's impact on nature. Besides there is no law that will stand that is proved to be robing a large segment of the population of their wealth and their livelihood. Other laws governing people's rights exist which can be used to force compromise in the courts.

Now that the lakes are low we need to hold back every drop we can above some mutually agreed to COMPROMISE (as against a dictate from one side of the argument) until they refill but once they are full again we should hold discharges to what comes in from rain anytime the lake levels start to fall. Concerns downstream that require more than can be expected from rain need to redesign their set ups accordingly so that they don't suffer during a drought. Until we find leadership that has these goals our lakes are destined to fail. These lakes are far too valuable an asset to continue to allow such stupidity to occur.