Lake Martin Topics: WATER LEVELS

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	Name:	keyman -
	Subject:	WATER LEVELS
	Date:	1/10/2009 11:19:10 PM

All good questions, I hope the follwing helps.

1.The rainfall of 944 can’t counter the 3969, it would have been in addition to the 3969. Smith Lakes Discharge goes into the Warrior River, however, with Smith Dam it is controlled when it enters the river. So the rain that fell in the 944 square miles was kept from rushing into the Warrior River until APC releases it at a much slower rate through the dam.
2.The flood control policy is the same one that was incorporated in 1965. With new technology and modeling there are better ways to manage flood control. Currently when Smith Lake is above the 510’ they have to discharge a certain amount per day. With today’s advanced weather forecasts and better understanding of how the river flows it is possible that Smith Lake could not discharge any of the water until downstream flooding had subsided. For instance Smith flood is between the 510-522 msl. Smith was only at the 513 so we still had plenty of room to hold the water until the downstream had crested and returned below flood stage, unfortunately the policy does not allow that. The other outdated policies are much to long to discuss at this time but will update later.
3.The Corps does have control of flood operations on Smith that supersedes APC. The corps was wanting to update the flood control procedure during the relicensing but APC opposed the timing of the studies. Ironically SLISA based its 502’ on APC data that concluded the 502’ would take a flood of greater than 1000 years to raise the lake to the 522’ and use the spillway.
4.The only logical explanation that APC does not follow the rule curve is due to the amount of water needed to cool the outdated plant at Gorgas. The same plant that has the Arsenic in the Ash pond that was reported in the other topic on this forum. Gorgas requires almost a billion gallons per day in the summer months to keep the Warrior River cool enough for Gorgas to operate in accordance with temperature requirements.

The basic misunderstanding of all the naysayers is that APC has since 1974 mismanaged the operations on Smith Lake. The rule curve is just that, a set of rules in which to manage the lake. APC has systematically violated this curve and that has caused informed stakeholders to rise up in an attempt to hold APC accountable for its actions.

keyman