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June 17, 2011
Heard the recent
publicity concerning the water quality in High Rock Lake? If you live
and/or play there, you should be concerned!!! Seems Thomasville is not the
only source of continuing pollution affecting Abbotts Creek and High Rock lake
(although they seem to be the biggest, continuing repeat offender).
Piedmont Council of Governments has been studying the many sources of the
pollution there and is working on a comprehensive plan to restore the habitat in
lower Abbotts Creek and improve the water quality coming into High Rock Lake.
Their recent
press
release announced their coming
Outreach Meetings. They will be holding a series of public meetings
next week to present their plan and give you a chance to ask questions
concerning the pollution sources and what we can all do to help with this
effort. The meeting times and location are listed on the Meetings and
Events pages. You can find lots of information concerning their effort on
their web site.
Jan 5, 2011
For quite a few years Alcoa has maintained High
Rock Lake relatively close to full pond in an effort to keep complaints to FERC
to a minimum until FERC issues a new license to operate the project. Now
they have apparently decided to draw High Rock
Down approximately 10 feet through late Feb. Their rational is to give residents the opportunity
to perform maintenance on their piers and seawalls and/or allow them to finally
use permits they have had for years for dredging. This will likely be a welcome event for those residents
around the lake that need to make repairs to their piers, seawalls or boat
ramps. Unfortunately Alcoa neglected to tell anyone in advance of their
plan so residents could arrange for materials to be on site or workers to be
available. This is a classic example of issues that were discussed
extensively during the relicensing negotiations and apparently will never
change. Alcoa already has the web site in place and could have easily informed
the public of their intentions far in advance but once again chose to leave
those most impacted by their actions totally uninformed. Those who have
pontoon boats that stay in the water year round may have already been caught
with their boats stuck in the mud. We do question the wisdom of drawing
High Rock down appreciably when the river basin is suffering from drought
conditions and river flows are running 35% to 45% below normal. Instead of
lowering the lake during previous winters when river flows were normal or above,
they chose to do so at a time when their ability to refill the lake in the
spring could be questionable. According to the Low Inflow Protocol they
agreed to use during periods of drought, they should actually be reducing the amount of water being withdrawn
from High Rock until drought conditions subside and river flows return to normal.
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