DMT Meeting Held March 5, 2009

Alcoa Power Generating, Inc. (APGI) hosted a meeting (conference call) of the Drought Management Team (DMT) on Thursday, March 5. This meeting was called because more than 10% of the Yadkin-Pee Dee watershed was in drought classification D1 (moderate drought). There were 25 participants on the call. I participated representing the Badin Lake Association.

It’s ironic that the call was held after the significant rain and snow event that occurred on Sunday. The lakes are full and APGI is generating at full capacity to try to keep from spilling too much water. Spilling water is the term they use when water goes over the spillway (or through the flood gates) and can’t be used for generating power. As you can imagine, they want to manage the lake levels to prevent or at least minimize spilling water.

After a roll call to identify all participants, Marshall Olson invited Alan Jones of APGI to speak first. Alan is evidently responsible for directly managing the water through the lakes and through the turbines. His comments were that he currently had a lot of water, he used up his three feet of capacity in High Rock Lake due to the rain/snow event, and that he needed to work High Rock Lake down to three to four feet below full in order to be prepared for the next rain event. He said that he expected about 3000 cubic feet per second (cfs) through the lakes during March, but a lot of that was front-end loaded. (We are currently at over 5000 cfs but he expects that to drop off quite a bit.)

Marshall then proceeded through the list of attendees asking for any comments. Among the attendees were representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers, NC Dept of Natural Resources, NC Wildlife Resources Commission, High Rock Lake Association, Duke Energy, Badin Lake Association, Uwharrie Point Community Association, NC Division of Water Resources, Progress Energy, SC Dept of Natural Resources, Pee Dee River Association, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Winston-Salem, and Kerr Scott Reservoir. Most participants said that they currently had plenty of water and no problems.

Larry Jones from High Rock Lake Association cautioned that, although we currently have a lot of water, all indications are that we are headed into a repeat of last summer, with drought and low river flow conditions. He said that we shouldn’t be too hasty to lower High Rock down to prepare for a rain event that likely will not come because it would be hard to recover the lake level heading into the recreation season. His argument was that we experience an event like that one this past weekend only once a year, and we already saw it.

Richard Schaefer from Uwharrie Point Community Association said that we need to educate people that, although the lakes are full now, we are still at risk for low water levels this summer. He recommended that we put together a story that relates drought conditions and river flow to lake levels so that people can better understand what is happening when the lake levels drop.

When my turn came to speak, I expressed my belief that we should not allow Badin Lake to drop to five feet below full this year before reducing the downstream flow to begin conserving water. I stated that conserving water earlier in the drought cycle would improve recreation, wildlife and fish habitat. In response to a comment that it makes sense to balance the relative drawdowns of High Rick and Badin lakes, I stated that Badin Lake does not have a problem with contributing its fair share of water to maintain downstream river flows after the downstream flow from Falls Dam is reduced. It is only that that we should begin conserving water before the lake is five feet down. I also stated that beginning to conserve water earlier in the drought cycle would provide additional capacity for maintaining the downstream river flows later in an extended drought. One other point I made is that the capacity of Badin Lake is not needed to contain a significant rain event because it is two dams down from High Rock, 95% of the Yadkin River Basin drains to High Rock Lake, and APGI would need to spill water over High Rock and Tuckertown dams before Badin could be used to hold back excess river flow.

The meeting was adjourned with the intent to draw up a press release documenting the meeting and providing some education as requested by Richard Schaefer.

By the way, an interesting comment that Marshall Olson made at the beginning of the meeting is that we would continue to hold the DMT meetings until the new license was approved. The implication is that, with the new license with the included Low Inflow Protocol, we would not need the meetings because the operation of the lakes during a drought is completely specified there.

………………………..Garry