Utility to release more water than residents favor, less than officials want
By TIM FLACH - tflach@thestate.com

SCE&G plans to release more water from Lake Murray into rivers downstream during a drought than homeowners favor, but less than state natural resources officials want.

Lake groups are pressing for high water after the low levels for most of the past six years because of the drought and dam repairs.

But state officials want more lake water to improve fishing in waterways as far as 75 miles south.

By the numbers
The approximate maximum gallons of water that groups say should flow from Lake Murray downstream daily during a drought:

Homeowners: 260 million gallons a day

SCE&G: 450 million

State officials: 840 million

• Amounts would vary daily with weather.

• The lake can hold 763 billion gallons of water, SCE&G says.

SOURCES: Reports filed at www.saludahydrorelicense.com and comments sent to SCE&G.
  South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. plans to release water at levels nearly twice what homeowners favor but about half of what state officials want.

“In low-flow times, it’s sharing of the pain,” SCE&G spokesman Robert Yanity said.

The Midlands-based utility oversees operation of a 47,500-acre lake that is a reserve source of power and a popular place to live and play.

The utility’s decision is aimed at settling the last major battle over new guidelines for lake operations for the next generation.

An agreement already is in place for releases during normal rain to benefit kayaking, trout fishing and other recreation on the lower Saluda River.

Shoreline neighborhood leaders say the decision on drought flow seems acceptable, but state officials aren’t satisfied.

The plan is “probably a good middle ground,” said Rick Kellemeyer of Chapin, one member of a group of lake anglers pressing for higher lake levels.

“It’s not ideal for lake people, it’s not ideal for river people, but it’s probably the best they can do to satisfy everybody some.”

State officials want more water released in the spring to improve fish habitat downstream and to enhance Congaree National Park’s swamp.

SCE&G’s proposal “won’t do the job fully, “ said Robert Perry, environmental director for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.

State officials want more water flowing from the lake in April and mid-May to benefit striped bass spawning in the Congaree River and other waterways.

Anglers and homeowners are concerned the state plan would take too much lake water when rain is scare.

That would leave many coves too shallow for boating in summer and worsen fishing at the lake, they say.

Some lakeshore leaders are skeptical of SCE&G’s plan.

Steve Bell, head of Lake Watch, said it promises to turn the lake into “the personal spigot” of waterways downstream.

SCE&G’s plan goes to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees lakes built for hydropower. Federal officials can accept, reject or modify it.

State natural resources officials can ask federal officials for more lake water to be released downstream.

That possibility makes some lake groups apprehensive.

“This ball game is not over,” Bell said. “It could have a long way to go.”

Federal officials hope to settle on new standards for lake operations by mid-2010.

Reach Flach at (803) 771-8483.