There have been a lot of posts being shared about an item on the District’s agenda for tomorrow’s Board meeting. I wanted to try and clear up some of the confusion and concern regarding this.
The issue in question has been discussed at the last two Board meetings, which are always open public meetings. The District tries to put important items on the agenda either as a Management Report or a Discussion Item, not for action, so that the public can be aware of issues and have an opportunity to learn more about the issue and have time to let the Board know of any concerns that they may have. When the deliberation process is done, the issue is then placed on the agenda for action. A Management Recommendation is a way that the Board can take formal action on an issue.
The consensus of the Board and the recommendation of Management, that is being considered at the Tuesday Board meeting, is to NOT do preemptive drawdowns of the lake.
Engineering work done after the December 2015 high water event shows that drawing down the lake level to allow for additional flood storage is not effective and has too many potential negative consequences in a low water situation, which is statistically more likely to occur.
The Board had the discussion on this issue as the District kept getting multiple calls every time it rained to do something to address rising lake levels, even when the increases in the level are normal.
The agenda item is to allow formal action by the District to address these continuing calls and have a policy in place to not do preemptive drawdowns.
Videos of Board meetings are available on the District website if you are interested in the discussions on the topic.