As I set here and pound out this column at shortly after 10am on Wednesday, the correct answer is 750.74’ and the latest prediction is for a crest later this afternoon of 752.20’. It’s been a while since we had a high water event of this magnitude and time dulls the memory of the destruction and heart ache associated with it. There’s always also a lot of frustration and accusations about the GRDA’s management of the lake in times like these.
Life was never described as being fair and that certainly rings true when it comes to managing flood waters. The residents of Miami, Oklahoma, and other communities upstream, always seem to get the short end of the stick in times like these. As inconvenienced as some lake front property owners consider themselves to be when they can’t get to their docks, that pale in comparison to having two feet of running water in one’s living room or kitchen. And the question which begs to be asked is, “Why is the wellbeing of communities downstream seemingly more important than those upstream?” I can only ponder that the decision to flood Van Buren, Arkansas would be a human initiated decision while what takes place upstream is considered to be an act of God.
Regardless of which end of this proverbial stick you happen to occupy, the management of heavy rains, and their associated run-off in the Grand Lake watershed, is an extremely complex issue. Most of us are mainly concerned with how it affects our own lives, but the Corps of Engineers is charged with managing a system, as opposed to a pond, a stream or one particular lake.
In the case of Grand Lake, they have to consider the contributions of the water inflow from not only the Neosho River, but also the Spring and Elk. It then passes on South through Lake Hudson and the rest of the system and eventually ends up in the Arkansas above Van Buren. And guess what? Those people downstream think their stuff on Lake Hudson, or any other lake or river in the system, is just as important the stuff we treasure here on Grand Lake, or further upstream. But it gets more complicated by the minute and especially when heavy rains are wide spread as they have been over the past week.
You see, were not the only system which eventually winds up in the Arkansas. If memory serves me correctly, the Cimarron River dumps into the Canadian River, and both Canadian Rivers, both North and South, eventually dump into the Arkansas, which eventually finds its way to the Mighty Mississippi. What is eventually finding its way to Van Buren is the sum of the rivers and that’s what makes managing flood waters so difficult.
As popular as it has become to blame the federal government for most of our difficulties in this life, I can’t think of any group we might identify who could or would do it better. I can’t imagine a herd of applicants coming forward to take over a mission this complex and with damn few Atta boys and even less financial rewards. It is what it is and that is an extremely complicated problem with few equations which would please all the affected parties.
Perhaps our state legislature could step forward and ban rainfall in excess of two inches in any given week in any contiguous five county area. That’s obviously tongue-in-cheek, but they’ve spent time on issues they have much less control over than rainfall, so why not? Don’t you feel better now?
I think I’ll opt for praying for sunshine and some Godly intervention for some folks upstream who are deserving of a break. And in a few dry months, we’ll be praying for some rain…….AGAIN.
See Ya’Around the Pond!
