In an April news article, the Ole Seagull wrote that the torrential rains during the night hours of April 9 into the early morning hours of April 10 wasn’t the start of our area’s flooding problems nor would those problems end after the spillway gates on Table Rock Lake were closed as planned later the next week. The spillway gates were closed and, as was the case prior to the rains of April 9, the releases from the Table Rock Dam have been controlled by “The Plan.”
What is the net effect of The Plan on the current situation in the Branson area? Today, over a month and a half later, the level of Table Rock Lake is about one foot below the top of its flood pool posing the very real risk of flooding, to the residents and businesses located below the dam and is actual flooding Table Rock Lake to the point that is impacting not only on the businesses located on the lake but on the economy of the whole area. Unfortunately, from an economic perspective, all this is occurring at a critical time in the areas economic cycle. Why, because of The Plan.
Just about everyone understands what a flood is, “An overflowing of water onto land that is normally dry and usually caused by an act of God.” Probably no one, at this point, knows what a “Plood” is and for good reason. It is a term that the Ole Seagull just coined and defines as “The overflowing of water onto land that is normally dry or the constant real threat of such flow, usually caused by The Plan.
The obvious question is, what’s “The Plan?” It’s official name is the “White River Basin, Arkansas and Missouri, Water Control Master Manual dated March 1985 and revised December 1998.” In an email response for information made by the Ole Seagull on May 12, P.J. Spaul, Public Affairs Officer, US. Army Corps of Engineers, Little Rock District, summed up the effect of the plan on the Branson Tri-Lakes Area by saying, “The plan, simply stated, says releases from Beaver are dependent upon the elevation in Table Rock and Bull Shoals lakes; releases from Table Rock are dependent upon the elevation in Bull Shoals lake; and releases from Bull Shoals and Norfork are dependent upon the “seasonal regulating stage” at Newport, AR.”
To an Ole Seagull that says the water released from Beaver, Table Rock, and Bull Shoals Dams all depend on “the seasonal regulating stage” at Newport, AR some 200 mile plus south west of Branson. That works out real well for the Newport area because the levels of the “seasonal regulating stage” were basically negotiated a decade or longer ago with, apparently, no effective local governmental participation from the Branson Tri-Lakes area.
The actual result, as of the morning of May 23, under The Plan, is that Newport’s level is 14.19 feet or just about 6.9 feet below its flood stage and about 18 feet below its April 13 crest of 33.2 feet. Table Rock Lake on the other hand is at 929.9, about 1.1 feet below the top of its flood pool and 3.4 feet below its April crest of 933.3 feet. Even as the Plooding has kept the lakes in the Tri-Lakes area at record levels it appears that The Plan has permitted the levels at Newport to continue to drop disproportionately.
One could actually get the impression that, at this point, the seasonal regulating stages have more to do with agriculture and planting for a specific area rather than flooding within the whole White River System. Interestingly, under The Plan, even though the actual levels at Newport have dropped dramatically over the last few weeks, so too have the seasonal regulating stages of The Plan thus further limiting the amount of water that can be discharged from our areas lakes.
For what it matters, in an Ole Seagull’s opinion, at this point it’s not about flooding Newport, it’s about economics, agricultural interest, and political clout. They had the clout to get what they wanted into The Plan while the Tri-Lakes area, for whatever reason, didn’t. The events of this year would seem to indicate that the Plood our area is currently facing is the result of a Plan that is over 23 years old and hasn’t been updated for ten years.
Would it not be a good idea for at least the officials of the cities of Branson and Hollister, Kimberling City, Taney and Stone County Commissioners, along with local Chamber of Commerce’s, to demand that The Plan be reevaluated again as soon as possible? Hopefully such a reevaluation will result in a more fair, equitable, and effective result for the Tri-Lakes area than the current plan does.
