Thread: Low water on Murray

Be Carefull, SCE&G is planning to lowing the water to 348 beginning Jan1 to do more work on the Dam . Excellent time to lose a prop or low unit by runner aground, It will Shallow-up real quick in places you do not expect.

Yes you heard right--seems to me they just think of making money.Just this past summer they ran a Turbine in the heat of the summer and killed thousands of Stripers.Some people reported that the sight and the smell on the lake was like a Sci-fi movie.The Turbine was #5--which they knew was not to be run because it drained all the oxygen out of the lake.Us Fisherman should not let people like this kill our love for the sport.

Thats my 2 cent worth--sorry if I offended anyone.

I'm with ya. As much as we pay for boat registration,boat property tax, and fishing license we should have some say. I fished murray last summer and there were big striper floating everywhere it was disgusting!!! <*)}}}>{
Don

Originally Posted by SCCRAPPIE

Yes you heard right--seems to me they just think of making money.Just this past summer they ran a Turbine in the heat of the summer and killed thousands of Stripers.Some people reported that the sight and the smell on the lake was like a Sci-fi movie.The Turbine was #5--which they knew was not to be run because it drained all the oxygen out of the lake.Us Fisherman should not let people like this kill our love for the sport.

Thats my 2 cent worth--sorry if I offended anyone.

Unit 5 was run for about 2 weeks up until July 15-18 to replace the generating capacity lost while Unit 2 was down for "Turbine Venting." Turbine venting is SCE&G's attempt to oxygenate the water going down stream in an effort to meet the minimum 5 parts of O2 per million requirements. I suspect the process is similar to how the Keep Alive system works...introducing air (via venting) into the turbine blades to oxygenate the water. Naturally, this venting will only help downstream, not in the lake itself.

Now, the bigger issue is this. SCE&G KNEW the water quality was already low. They also KNEW running Unit 5 would further degrade the water quality. Why not simply buy power from Duke Energy and sell peak power back to them later in the year when the water quality had sufficiently improved? Why not AT LEAST announce their intent to run Unit 5 and then carefully monitor the situation?

In my humble opinion. they had the tools, the knowledge, the where withall and a written agreement NOT to run except in emergency. This was not an emergency.

I cannot, however, discount the fact that this is a year of heavy rainfall such as we have not seen in years. This no doubt contributed to the water quality degredation, but again, they KNEW it would. Again, in my opinion, they were greedy...wanting to extract every last kilowatt of cheap hudroelectric power rather than act as stewards of Lake Murray's resources.

I was let down. I am angry. I am disgusted,interested to see how long it will take to recover.

My feelings...my opinions. Pinetuck

Well since I work for the company at question. And no I'm not in the department that handles that part. (lake levels) I will give everyone a little more info. The plan is to draw the lake down 4"/day for the month of Jan. Thats with no large amounts of rain. On jan. 30---the level is to be at 348. And stay there until the end of march.