So much for TVA “Balancing Guides”

The TVA has this concept of a Balancing Guide to make sure that no lakes are treated unfairly when drawing water from the lakes to provide water downstream. I have done an analysis of Blue Ridge, Nottely and Chatuge.

In this table, I have displayed the elevations for Summer Pool, Downstream, Full Pool Depth and current level for the three lakes. I also included the flood storage capacity for each to show the three lakes have similar water storage capacity. I then compared the current lake levels (less the elevation of the bottom of the lake) to the full summer pool. As you can see, Chatuge with 93% of full pool has about 7% more elevation than Blue Ridge and Nottely with 87% of full pool.

I drove by Chatuge last weekend and it did not show nearly the “high and dry” conditions of Blue Ridge and Nottely.

Dry Branch ramp is closed

Drove by Dry Branch today and the gates are down. Lakewood remains open but was running out of slab last time I was there, so Marina & Morganton are probably the best bets.

Blairsville resident nominated to serve on TVA’s board of directors

President Bush has nominated Thomas Gilliland of Blairsville to serve on the TVA board of directors. This is the first Georgian ever to serve on the board. Not that I expect things to change overnight but finally someone from the area of the Georgia TVA lakes will have a voice on the board.

…no Georgian before Gilliland has ever been nominated to serve on the TVA board.

Isakson originally voiced concern over Georgia’s continued lack of representation on the TVA board in February 2006 when six new nominees to the board were considered before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, on which Isakson serves. Isakson exercised his right to block those nominations from final confirmation until each nominee had given him assurances in writing that the interests of Georgia would be represented in some form by the board. In individual letters to Isakson, each of the six nominees pledged to “commit to the establishment of a process to ensure the views and advice of residents of each state in the Tennessee Valley are taken into consideration by the Board.”

http://www.theweekly.com/news/2007/July/11/Thomas_Gilliland.html