GLUE Report for 9-26-11

Since meeting with Senator Inhofe’s field representative Michael Lee, not a lot, but a little has transpired. The only communication I have had with Lee was in a follow up e-mail. He responded by asking for some of the study data we had discussed in our meeting of September 1^st. I had specifically mentioned Dr. Forrest Holly, a professor of Hydrology at the University of Iowa, who had been an expert witness in the flood litigation and who had also done some studies for the authority regarding any back water effects of the Pensacola Dam.

I have been able to dig up two studies with respect to the flooding issues upstream and I’ll paste what I consider to be the most significant below. Dr. Holly’s work in connection with the litigation would have to be released by the judge who presided over the action, but the work he did for the GRDA is public record.

When the authority was contemplating a year-round lake level of 745’, they contracted with Dr. Holly to see what the effects of such a change would do with respect to upstream flooding considerations. The study was titled “Analysis of Effect of Grand Lake Power-Pool Elevations on Neosho River Levels During a major Flood.”

As I said, I will post the entire letter to then Assistant General Manager of Risk Management, Bob Sullivan, for your review. But bottom line was Dr. Holly, using the flood of 1995 as his model, projected the change in river elevation during a major flood would be virtually the same with, or without the Pensacola Dam in place. He calculated the difference, which could be attributed to the dam as being two tenths of one foot.

So why does FERC need to have the Corps of Engineers study this all over again? This study has been provided to Senator Inhofe’s staff and hopefully they will approach FERC about the waste redundancy of another study. We’ll keep you posted.