Scheduled summer releases would be great but what people don’t seem to understand is that during average and dryer times the surrounding topography just does not generate the runoff needed for sustained scheduled releases during the summer……Russell Fork is at 18cfs right now and the Pound River, on which Flannigan Dam is located, is a smaller watershed…….do the math……

This lake serves several purposes with the primary purpose being flood control as mandated by our federal government when it was voted upon to be built.  In that vote were all the release protocols for operating the dam.  The lake was losing elevation before the season started because the ACOE has to maintain certain releases and water quality downstream.

This dam is part of a network of structures that provide drinking water, downstream water quality for drinking water and industry as well as water for barging coal off the Lower Big Sandy River.  Its not a stand alone structure…….The releases we get in October occur within the time frame for the fall drawdown so that the lake can catch floodwater in the winter and spring.  It is my understanding that the ACOE has October and November to draw down the lake with some discretion which include our releases but are not in the protocols approved at say a congressional level, i.e., it would literally take an act of congress to get summer releases.

There are also environmental concerns about releasing cold water into a warm water habitat and killing the baby fish early in the year.  This dam is not designed to let water from the warmer surface of the lake but from the colder lake bottom.

What I and possibly some others would like to see is a program to be put in place that would store a small amount of water during rainfall events during the week and release that water on the weekends since the ACOE has to release that water anyway to maintain the pool elevations.  There could be some sort of website that would inform about any releases.  This issue needs to be handled with kid gloves and not going in to a meeting with the ACOE with someone rambling on about who knows what.  There needs to be a plan presented to the ACOE that they could work with that’s within their protocols for the normal operation of the dam that might give us a few summer release.  Handling this any other way could jeopardize our October releases.

Mark Blair