The Tennessee Valley Authority apparently believes the summer season on South Holston Lake began and ended on Memorial Day. Since then, the lake has dropped by at least a half-foot per day, while oddly enough, Boone Lake has maintained full pond level of 1,382 feet.
The SHL “guideline” chart looks like an Olympic diver taking a swan dive. This has continued, and today SHL is at 1,700 and still dropping a quarter-foot per day or more.
Of the 10 reservoirs in the upper system, SHL and Watauga are the only ones with minus levels as compared to 2007 figures. Boone remains full at the 1,382 level and has to run two or more generators to keep the water from going over the spillway, which is only at 1,385 feet.
TVA has continued to state that water is not taken from SHL to fill Boone. At an Aug. 18 meeting in Congressman Rick Boucher’s Abingdon office, however, the agency stated that water is passed through Boone to maintain a flow at Tennessee Eastman and the John Sevier fossil plant downriver, which requires a 1,300-cubic-feet-per-second flow and a 400-500 cfs bypass. It seems that SHL is the major contributor.
The requirement should be shared equally with all of the upper lakes. If SHL has to have excess shoreline and rockpiles, then why not the rest? Besides, a true pass-through would not have raised Boone’s level in June as it did.
At an Aug. 18 news conference on South Holston Lake, TVA stated SHL does not need to support Boone because the river feeding it has enough flow to maintain the lake’s level. Yet, TVA says we are in a drought, so where is this river water coming from? And South Holston Lake continues to drop.
August rainfall at Tri-Cities Regional Airport is 0.97 inches, but in the upper watershed that feeds SHL, it is much higher.
A petition with more than 1,000 signatures recently was presented to the TVA Board of Directors for consideration; it asks for nothing but lake equality.
Cecil Corvin
Abingdon, Va.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement