YOUR VOTE IN UPCOMING ELECTIONS CAN IMPACT LAKE LEVELS

I met with Gary Gerrard who is running for Congress in Georgia’s 10^th district for about an hour on Thursday.  He is very interested in what he can do to help with our lake situation if elected.  He sees the recommendations being put forth by Save Our Lakes Now as sensible and wondered why the Corps is not doing anything with them.  We agreed that the basic problem for lake stakeholders is we have no meaningful representation at the Corps meetings where release rates, etc. are discussed.  We desperately need someone who has skin in the game from the stand point of recreation who will not be a yes man for the Corps.

 

We need to pass the word that our votes in upcoming congressional or senatorial races can make a big difference on how our lakes are managed.  The current representatives and Senators for some reason are staying at arm’s length from the battle.  The changes needed to correct our problems with lake levels are not complicated.  We already know how to eliminate the destruction to recreational infrastructure using what has been learned in recent droughts.  But our leaders sit quietly by while the Corps waits for further study to be done.  Even when the studies are complete we will not be any better off unless we can get representation in interpreting the study results.  We all know from problems with our government that the way something is interpreted depends on the mindset (eg. Democrat vs Republican) of the person doing the interpretation.  The same holds true with interpreting the results of lake studies.

 

I urge you to make sure the person you vote for in the upcoming elections is concerned about our lakes and willing to get into the fray over how our lakes are managed.  At the very least they need to insist that recreation ,the one Corps responsibility that is being ignored, be put into the equation of balancing the basin.  

CORPS HAS SOLUTION TO LAKE LEVEL PROBLEM

The recent issue of Balancing the Basin offers a fantastic solution to our lake level problems that should be totally acceptable to all Savannah River Basin (SRB) interests.  It is really quite simple yet it answers the environmentalists desire to stay away from the ravages of a river in severe drought and fish and wildlife’s desire for more variation in river flows while taking care of the lake stakeholders desire to avoid the devastating low lake levels experienced in recent droughts.  The solution is to operate the lakes all the time the same way they do in flood stage. 

 As stated in the recent Balancing the Basin, the corps is currently varying flows as needed to maintain lake levels within an acceptable range.  This is standard operating procedure in flood stage.  If they simply use this same mode all the time with the added restriction of never dropping below 3600cfs (3100 in cold weather) all SRB interests should be taken care of.  The beauty of this approach is that it is within standard operating practice for the Corps and satisfies the various demands of all the different stakeholders.  If we combine this with dropping the lakes 2' in October rather than 4' (see previous blog), recreation would finally be protected the way it should be and the horrible loss in revenues and property values in droughts can become a thing of the past. 

 

To accomplish this we are going to have to get the operating plan for our lakes fixed now while the lakes are full rather than wait till the next drought happens.  That's going to be hard because everyone is excited now that the lakes are full.  Somehow we are going to have to get our political leaders like Jeff Duncan involved more aggressively.   And if you know a way to contact any of the candidates for Paul Broun’s office we need to make them aware as well.