Have Habitable Structures All But Been Forgotten?

As we head into the third year of waiting on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to pass judgment on the proposed Shoreline Management Plan, submitted by GRDA in September of 2008, any discussion about the fate of habitable structures has all but disappeared. By GRDA definition, a habitable structure is any enclosed dock which could be potentially inhabited by humans with bathroom facilities.

When the Shoreline Management Plan was submitted to the feds, the section on these structures remained blank and the authority said study of this issue was still underway. An addendum was to be filed when their study was completed and a policy established. We’re still waiting.

A look back at what’s transpired so far makes the ongoing silence even more deafening. The authority contracted with the University of Oklahoma to do a lake wide environmental impact study on the potential ill affects of these structures. The study is dated October 1, 2008. The results of the study were presented to the full GRDA board of directors in late 2008. The recommendations authored by Randall L. Kolar, Ph.D., P.E., and Russell C. Dutnell, P.E. School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman, were as follows:

In summary, then, the following itemizes our recommendations to GRDA based on the outcomes of this study:
1.require all wastes from structures to receive at least secondary wastewater treatment before being discharged;
2.require structures and boats to have holding tanks that are not susceptible to rupture or leakage due to a catastrophic weather event;
3.require automatic shut-off valves on all lines between the shore and habitable structures;
4.develop and implement a comprehensive, lake-wide monitoring and modeling program that routinely tracks major water quality variables;
5.institute a program to collect data on physical properties of the lake, e.g., bathymetry;
6.consider a special license fee whose proceeds go toward construction and maintenance of an adequate number of pumpout stations in order to avoid boats dumping their wastes;
7.critically review monitoring data annually to identify potential water quality problems;
8.use newly-collected data to update modeling results every three years;
9.make changes to the shoreline management plan based on updated modeling and monitoring observa¬tion

Following their presentation, the board held a lengthy discussion about habitable structures on Grand Lake and directed their staff to develop a set of rules to address these structures and to include how to cover the additional cost of assuring compliance by those having these kinds of structures. Chairmanships of that same board have come and gone over the past two years, yet these rules and the determination of a policy has never made it back as an agenda item for board consideration.

Throughout the development of the shoreline management plan, we were told over and over about how the FERC did not look favorably on these structures citing their potential damage to water quality and the environment. If the authority is waiting for a response from the feds with respect to the submitted shoreline management plan before addressing this issue, perhaps in some way it’s understandable.
Or is this is just another example of being intimidated by the FERC? Either way, the public deserves an update as to the status of this issue. Or better yet, might we suggest chief executive officer Kevin Easley sponsor the placement of this issue on the board agenda as a first step towards the establishment of a set of rules and a policy governing these structures?

See Ya Around the Pond!