Lake Going Down

It's been a long time since I have had to post a lake level notification, but here we are.  We are in a drought.  The lake is down just over 3 feet now and likely to go down to 5 feet over the next few weeks unless we get some significant rain in the mountains. 

We had another DMT (Drought Management Team) meeting this past Thursday and Yadkin (Yadkin division of ALCOA Power Generation) continues to release 1400 CFS (Cubic Feet per Second) downstream, even though inflow into the lakes is down in the 700 to 800 CFS range.  That's the rate required under the current annual license.  The new license (if it ever gets issued) requires only 1000 CFS and I lobbied hard for Yadkin to request a variance from FERC to drop it to that rate in order to retain as much water as possible in the lakes.  Instead they are requesting to drop the rate to 1200 CFS when we enter stage 0 of the LIP (Low Inflow Protocol) as outlined in the new license (if we ever get it).  The request further asks to drop the rate to 900 CFS when we enter stage 1 of the LIP.  And it asks to draw down High Rock and Badin equally.

Well, High Rock needs to be down four and a half feet (and therefore Badin needs to be down four and a half feet) to enter stage 0, and High Rock needs to be down five feet (likewise Badin) to enter stage 1.  So there you have it, we're going down without significant rain.

As a comparison, Lake Norman and Lake Wylie are both currently down five and a half feet from full.  But as another comparison, Lake Tillery is down on the order of six inches.

........................Garry