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. 

WHERE WOULD LAKE LEVELS BE IF

If you ask anyone why our lakes are so low they will respond that it is because we are in a severe drought.  But that is not the whole story by any means.  Over a year ago Save Our Lakes Now recommended to the Corps that we drop release rates on Lake Thurmond to 3600 cfs or we would be looking at low lake levels in the near future.  We even did a quick spot on Channel 6 News with this warning.  Now, more than a year later I thought it would be interesting to look back and see where we would be now had the Corps followed our advice.

In May of last year when Lake Thurmond dropped below 328' the release rates would have been dropped to 3600cfs following our advice.  Instead the Corps averaged about 4800cfs until August and the lake dropped 3' to 325'.  Had they dropped to 3600 in May as we asked the lake would not have dropped.  It would have remained at 328ft.  The following months since August our recommendation was still 3600cfs.  The Corps compromised and went to 3800 cfs instead.  This difference in release rates over a years time results in a 2' drop in lake level. 

Summing up these differences Lake Thurmond would now be at 325' instead of 320 and Lake Hartwell would be at 655' instead of 650.  So is the drought the reason our lakes look like heck now?  As everyone familiar with our lakes knows a 5' drop is not that bad.  So the answer is no.  It is the way the lakes are being managed.

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.