One GREAT letter!! To Corp of Engineeers

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
1

As a person that has found himself in rising water when water shouldn’t be rising, this letter hits a home run.
Also, to have done this to businesses in this economy is unconscionable!!
These boneheads at the Corp of Engineers have GOT to get their stuff together!!

Even though the person that wrote this placed it in a public setting, I have removed their name and other info.

January 2010

                                    AN OPEN LETTER TO THE
                            U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS
                                      LITTLE ROCK DISTRICT

Failure of the Corps and Southwestern Power Administration (SWPA) to consider fishermen when executing water releases has caused anglers to go to other states to fish. Many will never return to the Beaver, Table Rock, Little Red, Norfork or Bull Shoal tailwaters and businesses suffer. In Heber Springs, the Little Red Fly Shop is closing, Elite Marine and Arkansas Boating Center have gone out of business, Anderson House Inn is for sale, other B & B’s, boat docks and dozens of other businesses are struggling or closing. All shops in Heber Springs, Mountain View, Calico Rock, Mountain Home, Cotter, Flippin, etc. rely on tourism to make a living and high water has reduced tourist traffic.
Maintaining high lake levels requires frequent water releases which drives away the tourists from the lakes as well as the tailwaters. Refusing to lower lake levels now in anticipation of spring rains will send tourism even deeper into a tailspin.
Opening the flood gates would probably not be necessary if lake levels were drawn down in advance to store the occassional heavy rain event. At Greers Ferry, 451’ should be closer to the norm than 461’ especially January through April. I believe 451’, or a compromise, would be of great assistance to the tourism industry. Keeping lake levels at or near top power pool means that water releases will be required after every rain event. It has been estimated that for every day the Little Red River is not fishable due to storm water runoff or water releases, the county loses one hundred thousand dollars in uncollected revenue!
Here is how the Corps can help. Reconsider the outdated (1966) Corps regulations. Much has changed in the last 44 years along Arkansas’s tailwaters. The area population has exploded over the decades and tourism has become a crucial part of the economy. Your present day operating regulations do not reflect this growth in the tourist industry in northern Arkansas. Current release protocols are killing these businesses across the northern tier of counties in the natural state. Andrea Lewis, chief civilian at the Little Rock District, told me that there is, indeed, some room for variances on water release scheduling. I would like to see a few variances this year. Here is a good example of when a variance could have been used.
Last Easter weekend (4/12/09), the Greers Ferry Lake level was 3/100ths of a foot into the flood pool (461.47’). Someone decided to release water here for 18 hours per day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday during the holiday weekend and turned the water off on Monday morning. Hundeds of bewildered people left town in disbelief. Releases could have easily been delayed until Monday with no harm. The reasoning behind that decision is why millions of dollars are being lost every year in our state. Simply consider how releases affect the tourism industry and do what you can to help. I realize that there will be times when the lakes are very high and nothing can be done to restrict releases. Giving tourism some consideration just on weekends and holidays would be a boon to the industry.
Tourism brings in millions of dollars to the state treasury and to hundreds of businesses every year. Crops grown near the White River, on the other hand, enrich a few farmers providing only a fraction of the income to the state that tourism generates. Giving priority to a handful of growers over the tourist industry is misdirected logic. The policy of holding water in the reservoirs until crops are harvested, angers both lake and river enthusiasts and unfairly burdens businesses that rely on recreation for their income. This old policy needs to be revised with a compromise and a nod to tourism. President John Kennedy, in his dedication speech given on the completion of the Greers Ferry Dam back in 1963, stated that this new lake and river would be a boon to the tourism industry of this region. We have a trout hatchery that supplies fish for the tourism industry but there is no way for the majority of anglers to participate in their sport when the rivers are high and swift most of the time. A change of water release protocols is in order.
Finally, Southwestern Power Administration does not understand how important water release schedules posted on the internet are to hundreds of anglers and businesses. SWPA believes that the information they provide is reliable and accurate when many times it is neither. Someone there needs to be assigned to do the release schedules who will immediately make changes when releases vary from the posted schedule. Water releases that occur when postings state otherwise can cause people to drown. Release what is posted or promptly change the posting to accurately reflect the change in releases especially on weekends and holidays!
Please reconsider water release protocols especially in this recession. I am, once again, contacting our U.S. senators for help with these matters.

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2

They have had a history of:

  1. Not sticking to release schedules, thus endangering the public.
  2. Releasing water at times of recreating(weekends and holidays), when it could be released at night time or days earlier or days later.
  3. Most recently. Not preparing the lake levels for large rainfalls, thus creating MONTHS of high-water discharge, causing businesses to fail.
3

And who thinks that the opinions of the people affected matter a hoot to the Corps?

4

I wish I could say the TVA is any better. Bureaucrats all. Our government has lost its common sense (and I mean that in the most bipartisan sense possible!)

5

I will give the TVA this. They tend to stick to the posted release schedules.

6

Although I haven’t been over to the lake to see it (and its iced over anyway), a recent local newspaper reported the Corps here has dropped the reservoir to the lowest level allowable (whatever that means), in anticipation of the melt-off from all the snow we’ve accumulated this winter (close to a new record amount).

So…perhaps the group up here is beginning to learn from the frequent floods we’ve been having since 1993.

7

I think this letter was written by Jeb Holland from the little red fly shop in heber springs. It was posted along with his farewell, and he appears to have closed his shop. The little red was the river I started fly fishing on, and Jeb’s shop was the first fly shop I ever walked in. He has no idea who I am, but I am deeply saddened to see his shop close. I have made several trips to Arkansas in the last two years I have been flyfishing, only to find generators running and fishing to be impossible.

8

Big 10-4 on that.

9

i remember just a few years ago now we were all complaining about the drought and blaming the corps of engineers for not managing that right and screwing up the fishing and hurting everyone’s businesses. add a couple of years of average to a bit above average precipitation and my how things change! but have WE?

when you’re in a weather-dependent business, you learn to adapt and overcome the weather or you fail. people nowadays have this mindset that things are always supposed to be ideal…that if conditions ever turn “bad” that someone else is supposed to “fix” it for them. news flash: you can catch fish on high water. you can do it with a fly rod. people do it all over the world.

so what has really changed in the past couple of years? is it the high water that has cleaned up the didymo and detritus that was clogging up the gravel beds, given the fish added opportunity for even more rapid growth, and motivated even a higher % of anglers to hire guides w/boats? i don’t think so. it is the e-c-o-n-o-m-y. and it’s happening everywhere. once again, business models built on “good times” instead of “bad times” scenarios are doomed to fail when the economy hits the skids just like the family that bought their house and cars and ran up their bills based on 2 good paychecks always being there.

i’ve also been standing in the river when the water came up unexpectedly. i almost lost it that day. that wasn’t the corps’ fault. they are quite clear about the unpredictability of power generation and the unreliability of their posted schedules. everyone knows about this. it was MY fault. i wasn’t paying close enough attention AND ignored my own instincts…2nd guessed myself when my brain said, “hey, is the water rising?” after all, the fish were biting.

i feel for everyone who is struggling nowadays…i really do. things haven’t been easy for us for 8 years now. we were forced to sell our home, give up careers, etc. through no fault of our own. but the biggest problem i see around me today is how quickly 98% of americans turn to assigning blame and shirking responsibility. the time for blame is not when you need to get the family out of the burning building. and waiting for the fire department to get there to rescue your family because you pay taxes for that and by golly you deserve it, they’re professionals and you’re not actually qualified to rescue people from burning buildings, or because your insurance guy hasn’t given you permission yet might get your family killed. i really don’t get it. all around me a hear and read tons of reasons why things don’t work and tons of excuses why the speaker/writer isn’t able to do anything about it.

blaming the usace for too much water in the river? please. those lakes were built for 2 reasons: 1) flood control, and 2) hydroelectric power for the greater ozarks and red river region. last time i checked, both of those things were working out pretty well. recreational use is “icing on the cake.” and if someone wants to change that list of priorities, they aren’t going to do it by writing a letter to the usace. they’re the army. they take orders from the president and get their $$$ from congress…the folks we elect to make our decisions for us.

10

I applaud the effort,but Flyguy is right on the money about the 2 reasons. Do not think for one minute that they give a flying crap about fishing, fishermen or business (other than their’s). The will not do any of the ideas proposed until and unless there is some sort of oversight that forces them too, they can turn a profit from it, or there is so much negative publicity they have to make a change.

11

since when did the us army have a profit motive? the usace does what they are told by statute. they run and maintain the dams they built because they have the expertise to do so. the southwest power admin holds the water rights to the water between flood pool and power pool in the lakes. and they use that for profit, regulated as a public utility. and that was mandated by congress a long time ago. sending a letter to the corps is tantamount to sending a letter to the guy who gathers up the carts in the wal-mart parking lot about wal-mart being too greedy when you want a change in wal-mart corporate policy. i don’t know why it is so hard for folks to understand this. the army does what it is told by elected officials. their priorities are etched in stone by federal law. if folks want change they are the wrong place to try to effect change. that’s not because they are bad people or because it’s a bad organization. it’s like talking to a fire hydrant if you want it moved. you need to talk to the fire marshal, not the fire plug.

and even that wasn’t my real point. high water in the ozarks tailwaters over the past couple of years has been nearly non-stop. why? precipitation. so who do you complain to and blame for that? all that water has to go downstream once the lakes are full. and fishermen have to learn to adapt to changing conditions or just quit fishing until conditions return to what they know how to deal with. like i said: a couple of years ago everyone was complaining about LOW flows, minimum flow legislation was being lobbied for HARD and even passed, and everybody wanted to blame the corps and swpa as “the enemy” for low flow then, too. so they were the cause of low flow during the drought and they’re the cause of high flow during heavy precip? ever stop to think maybe it’s just the weather?

12

As someone who has looked at a generation schedule, seen the water scheduled to shut off at 10:00 PM, driven three hours to Lake Taneycomo only to have 4 units run all night, I agree with flyguy. Besides, if you really want to gripe about not sticking to their release schedule, look at SWEPCO, not USACE.

13

“I’ve also been standing in the river when the water came up unexpectedly. i almost lost it that day. that wasn’t the corps’ fault. they are quite clear about the unpredictability of power generation and the unreliability of their posted schedules.”

With today’s communication abilities there is NO EXCUSE for that!! Most of us have smart phones that can check release schedules. If they change the schedule, they can certainly change the information on their websites to reflect that. NO EXCUSE!!
Also with today’s communication they could EASILY send out an email or a TXT message to subscribers, telling of such!!
I’d bet an app could be made to warn you of this also.

THAT IS NO EXCUSE AT ALL IN TODAY’S WORLD!! N O N E !!!

Every stream I fish in Tn and Arkansas has a cell signal so that is no excuse. I know because I check the schedule before fishing for the day and frequently during the day.

Someone needs to SUE THEM to get their attention and I am not litigious type whatsoever.

I’m thinking a little protest might be in order. Anyone up for one?
Someone needs to get their attention before someone dies(ooops change that to…before the next person dies!!) and before more businesses go out of business!!

With that said however, the TVA DOES have an “observed discharge” readout on their site. SO what ever is discharged, you can SEE it is being discharged. Now you have to know what that amount of discharge means though.

This is like Toyota putting a disclaimer on the steering wheel: “Your car may suddenly accelerate to 100 mph with no warning whatsoever”. Well, you’ve been warned…

14

Be careful what you ask for. The first wrongful death lawsuit could see a LOT of tailwaters closed to fishing. There have already been signs posted on some tailwaters in Tn and one of the easiest access points for the Caney Fork is not only posted, but patrolled. Ignore that warning sign and you could end up cited or even in jail.

Yes, it is frustrating. But trying to watch TV without electricity is kinda frustrating too. I DO believe that both the Corps of Engineers and TVA need to do a better job of keeping the release schedules accurate. I have never experienced it myself, but I have heard others talk about water being released while the information being put out by the 800 is still playing the recording about no heavy releases today. TVA is suppossed to control floods, generate power, and maintain navigable levels for commercial traffic on the rivers. Anything else is gravy. I like gravy, you can’t live on it.

Please note that I am stating an opinion and that I bear no ill will to anyone on this site.

Warm regards,
Ed

15

mmm… gravy. :wink: