somerset corps meeting

The detachable floating barriers and signs saying Keep Out that the Corps is planning on using are not going to protect anyone or anything from a terrorist attack. Again, the vulnerable part of these type dams is the earthen portion and also the control rooms and locks. The locks are not being restricted....the earthen portion of the dams is not accessable by boat from the down river side....and are not included in the Off Limits areas presented by the Corps in the up river Off Limits areas...and the Control Rooms are already locked and have restricted access.....so the claim of trying to restrict these areas because of terrorists...does not hold water. We had a demolitions expert at our meeting and he brought this up and the Corps personnel present certainly did not disagree.

Just ban idiots and terrorist
PROBLEM SOLVED

[QUOTE=Shellkat;507259]Just ban idiots and terrorist
PROBLEM SOLVED[/QUOTE]

Good point...lol. Problem is you cannot regulate stupidity. What is happening here is that the majority of the time at Lake Barkley Dam, the gates are only open a few days out of the year and on Wolf Creek Dam it is rare to have the gates opened. The Corps wants to close these areas to boats (anglers) based on full flow, which again only happens rarely. The anglers want access during periods of no gates open which is overwhelmingly most of the time and have these areas restricted to access when the gates are open. The wording in the regulation which directs the Corps to restrict these areas based on full flow levels contains the word "ordinarily" which means that there is room for compromise. If the regulation said "shall" or "will" then there would be no room for compromise as they are words which in federal regulations mean "mandatory".

The real reason the Corps wants to close these areas off year round is that they have settled out of court by being sued by families of those folks that have been killed by being in those areas when the gates are open. Kind of like paying off a family that had a member killed or injured when they ran a stop sign and caused an accident....just because there was no barrier that came down when the stop light came on to keep that person from entering the intersection. Like I said, you cannot regulate stupidity. During our meeting here at Barkley, the mayor of Grand Rivers addressed the Corps and told them about how many times the city had been sued by these frivoulous type lawsuits and how the city had never settled out of court but taken the cases to court and that the city had never lost a case yet. The mayor explained that as mayor he was obligated by his office to ensure the taxpayers money was not wasted by paying off frivoulous lawsuits.

Bottom line here is that the Corps held these meetings not to take input, but to tell us that this is what they are going to do and gave us the time frames that this would be accomplished. Their minds were already obviously made up and their attitude here was "here it is, live with it". It was obvious in the meeting here that they were not prepared for resistance they met from the public here...they obviously from Bob's report got a little more prepared by the time the meeting for Wolf Creek Dam and that the officials attending that meeting were not as prepared as the officials that attended the meeting here were.

My gut feeling is that the Corps will continue with their plan and barricade these areas and the only way that there is a chance that this can be changed will be in court where laws and regulations are interpreted. The way I personnally read this regulation is that the Corps can do exactly what they are proposing or they can compromise.....but it is their choice as to whether or not they compromise and not ours.

Gates and spillage vs the area behind the turbines was discussed. One fisherman from Barkley raised that point, noting gate areas are more dangerous, and since there has been instances of spillage from these gates he agree those areas ought have some sort of restriction. He recommended the corps think about allowing fishing tight to the turbines out puts because thsoe are far less turbulent, and still offer good fishing.

Corps LTC said they would consider that. But noted given physical layout it may be difficult to cordon off just that spillage and gates area.

Dave, all good points. The lawsuit thing I agree with you on. Push each case to the courts and then react if there's a formal decision against the Corps.

I'd like to see the coprs not restrict the area, but instead, increase the amount of warning time before a gate opening or turbine being turned on. MCAlpine gives a 30 second horn, the just 3 minutes till the danger arrives. Why not first of all extend the warning to 30 minutes, repeated at 15 minutes, 5 minutes, then a final "here it come horn". And then standardize that warning across all corps sites as a fisherman at Wolfe today maybe be at McAlpine next weekend. Extended warnings in davance also gice the Corps operator more time to see who is failing to clear the area and call law enforcement to get the idiot removed. I noted that to the Corps at the Somerset meeting meeting. Corps said they noted it, but alos noted that folks that ignore a 3 minute warning, would probably just set back and wait till the last minute, then still ignore the warnings.

Darn shame some in our society have gotten into the habit of blowing off warnings and then trying to hold others responsible for their bad judgement and behavior. I don't like it when govt protects me from myself, and don't like it when my govt has to protect itself from idiots.

Bob: I definitely agree with giving the warnings at intervals to allow everyone time to get out of the area. I can remember fishing below Wolf Creek years ago and when there never was any warning at all given when they blew the turbines...when that happened you would be running for your life....definitely remember one morning when they turned all their turbines on around daylight and I had just made my first cast at the mouth of hatchery creek...I got a short ride down stream, luckily I had on neoprene waders to keep me afloat. Was sure glad when they finally started blowing the siren to alert folks they were going to turn on the turbines. I am with you for sure on having the government trying to protect us from ourselves and then having also to penalize the many for the stupid acts of the few.

Warning horns with a decent amount of time to get out of the way sounds like a great idea. The only hing I see that would have to be added is some sort of strobe for the folks who are hearing impaired. Americans with Disabilities Act dictates alot of things in construction and our daily lives. If one person with a hearing disability was hurt because he didnt hear the warnings the lawsuit would be a slam dunk for them. It's so sad that things have come to this but I promise you when ADA enforcement talk pops up people listen...especially legal folks.