AMAZING SIMILARITIES

Listening to a recent summary of where the Keystone Pipeline stands it struck me that there are many similarities between that situation and the way the EPA tries to control the Corps’ handling of the Savannah River Basin.  As you know the Keystone pipeline has been held up for years by demands from the EPA for more studies.  Experts in the field say the Keystone Pipeline is one of the best studied projects ever from the standpoint of environmental impact.  These studies have shown no significant impact on the environment from use of this pipeline.  Additionally the environmental impact of rail or truck transport is much worse than the pipeline. What is happening is not logical.

 

Sounds familiar doesn’t it. The EPA is being unrealistic and demanding more and more studies in both cases. In my opinion their demand for more study is simply a delaying tactic.  Just as they ignore the fact that ground transport of oil has a higher impact on the environment, they ignore the vast amount of information showing that releases which would protect recreation are acceptable downstream.  In both cases the EPA ignores the vast amount of information already available from previous studies. 

 

Looking at basics, the Corps is much more comfortable following EPA wishes than fighting the EPA and protecting recreation the way they should.  The only way this can change short of clipping the EPA’s wings is to make the Corps more comfortable protecting recreation than following the illogical demands of the EPA.  Until congress forces the EPA to be reasonable, the only effective tools we have are political pressure, law suits, and publicity.  We cannot afford the massive expense that would be entailed in a law suit.  And political pressure depends to a large extent on how much positive publicity our  politicians can expect from their efforts.  This then leaves publicity as our only practical means of changing the way the Corps is managing our basin. 

 

Recognizing this, Save Our Lakes Now constantly publicizes how our lakes are being mismanaged.  Without such publicity the Corps would have no need to defend any of their tactics and recreation would be damaged even more than at present.  For example the 3600cfs that the Corps is constantly haggling over came from recommendations made by Save Our Lakes Now several years ago. We were the ones to realize that the amount of rain during our droughts of record averaged 3600cfs annually.  Furthermore high publicity draws the attention of our politicians.  It would be political suicide to ignore heavy demands from a large portion of their constituency. 

 

RESPONSE TO BALANCING THE BASIN VIDEO ABOUT NEED FOR STUDIES

Stan Simpson is a great guy and nothing we say here should be taken as a criticism of him.  He works for the Corps and is bound by their guidelines.  It is those guidelines that we are taking exception to.

 

In the recent video from Balancing the Basin Stan Simpson explains how release rates from Lake Thurmond can affect the Savannah River System.  He is correct in that there are a lot of things we don’t know in detail about these affects.  However the jump from there to the assumption that the Corps is correctly using the knowledge they do have is misleading.  The fact is the Corps has tons of information they do know but refuse to  use.  And based on talking to the heads of GA and SC DNR they are not to blame for the Corps’ refusal to control lake levels within reason. 

Like Stan I also am an engineer.  Let’s take a look at a few examples of poor engineering practices by the Corps:

·       When Lake Thurmond was the only lake collecting runoff from all rains above Augusta, the Corps dropped its level 4’ during the winter to avoid flooding during the high runoff periods as you come out of the winter months.  Now there are 3 lakes to collect this run off so a 2’ drop would provide the same protection that 4’ used to.  Regardless of our pleas to change to 2’ so the lakes don’t start out a drought so low, the Corps adamantly refuses to make this change.  The result is we enter a drought 4’ below full pool instead of 2’.

·       There are hundreds of millions of dollars lost every major drought by the huge recreation infrastructure around the lakes.  Although congress has tasked the Corps with being responsible for recreation they ignore this wanton destruction in the drought control measures they use.  Furthermore they demonstrate either a total disdain for lake interests or an unimaginable degree of poor thinking by equating the fact that some fishermen find it hard to fish low spots in the river at low release rates with recreation infrastructure losses on the lakes during major droughts.

·         A lot has been learned in past droughts that is not being applied to managing the system.  For example 3600cfs release rates were experienced for over 12 consecutive months in the drought of 2008.  No serious problems were encountered downstream.  The Corps even acknowledges this fact in their worst case scenarios for drought protection stating that 3600cfs gives no serious impact to the environment.  In spite of this the Corps waits until our lakes are destroyed from a recreation stand point before they initiate 3600cfs releases.  And even now when the lakes are still down they refuse to hold 3600 cfs to let the lakes refill. 

·         Nature, in spite of its ravages from time to time, does a good job of providing for all the little critters that live in or near our rivers and lakes.  Nowhere on Earth does nature provide a constant flow rate for rivers.  It is pure idiocy from an engineering stand point to try to keep a major river like the Savannah at rates desired by man instead of those dictated by nature.  The dams smooth out the ravages of flooding and drought but to try to generate an artificial river of the size of the Savannah that never goes below  4,000cfs makes no sense.

·         The basic engineering principle the Corps is using is badly flawed.  The Corps insists on releasing more water from the lakes than nature provides.  As anyone who has ever kept up with a bank account for any period of time knows, such a practice will bankrupt the system.  We cannot make water out of thin air.  Consequently you have to match the water nature provides or you destroy the lakes.  Yet the Corps insists on following an antiquated drought plan that fully ignores the amount of water coming into the system.

 

There is probably more that could be said but these examples should make the point.

 

An Engineer uses existing scientific information to come up with a workable system.  A scientist on the other hand is always looking into further detail trying to eliminate any unknowns about a system.  If designing the first plane had been left up to scientists we would still not have air travel because there are so many questions that can only be answered by flying.  While further study by scientists will help understand the Savannah River System better, it is to no avail if we don’t use the knowledge gained to engineer the best system possible as we go.  We already know how to keep the lakes within 10’ of full pool (recreation can survive up to a 10’ drop) and we already know such measures will not do damage downstream.  So it is time to stop waiting for more study and apply what is already known.  Current Corps practices are causing hundreds of millions of dollars of destruction to our recreation infrastructure by failing to follow good engineering principles.  It’s time for that to stop.

 

RESPONSE TO 4/11/13 BALANCING THE BASIN ARTICLE ABOUT EFFECTS OF HARBOR DEEPENING

The article from Billy Birdwell on deepening the harbor and its impact on releases from Lake Thurmond (and therefore Hartwell as well) is inaccurate and misleading.  I doubt it is a deliberate attempt to misinform but regardless, it shows a dangerous lack of understanding of the variables involved.  Competent engineering demands a full grasp of what impacts the basins and the harbor.  That is not demonstrated here.

 

First off, Lake Thurmond Releases have no significant impact on the oxygen levels in the harbor.  The tides bring in 10 times the water that comes in from the river and thereby the ocean, not the river, controls the oxygen levels in the harbor.  Besides, detailed analyses of oxygen content of the Savannah River at Clyo (last sampling point before the harbor) shows releases from Lake Thurmond have no significant impact on the amount of oxygen in the river as it enters the harbor.  As a result Mr. Bailey’s article draws the correct conclusion but for the wrong reasons.

 

Secondly, the promise of no impact on release rates may not be true.  Concurrent with deepening the harbor the Corps plans to put in a multi-million dollar fish ladder around the Augusta lock and dam so sturgeon can spawn in the Augusta Shoals (a location they have not been able to reach since the 1930’s).  This inserts a new controlling factor for lake releases.  Once the sturgeon are in the shoals, minimum release rates will be dictated by how much flow there is in the shoals.  Again Mr. Bailey’s article shows a serious lack of knowledge of the system.