The Alexander City Outlook

HOBO meeting focuses on dam relicensing

Members of the Lake Martin Home Owners Boat Owners Association (HOBOs) met Saturday morning to discuss issues such as the upcoming Martin Dam relicensing.

About 110 members of the organization packed into Red Ridge United Methodist Church in Dadeville Saturday morning for the annual membership meeting. The meeting was originally scheduled for April 30 at Camp Civitan, but was rescheduled after an April 27 tornado plummeted through Lake Martin, destroying much of the camp along its way.

“Usually, we have an outside speaker come in, but this time with the relicensing issue, I thought it would be a good time to talk to the members and bring them up to date on that topic more so from a HOBOs perspective,” HOBOs president Jesse Cunningham said.

As previously reported by The Outlook, Alabama Power Company announced in June a proposal to raise Lake Martin’s winter pool level by three feet and a conditional extension that will maintain a higher lake level in the fall. The proposed changes were included in the Martin Dam license application Alabama Power filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). If the application is approved by FERC, the lake level changes will not begin until at least 2013 when the new license goes in effect.

However, Cunningham said that the HOBOs association would continue to advocate for a five feet winter pool increase as well as the extension of the summer pool by six weeks.

“The data in studies conducted by Alabama Power all support five feet or higher … and the extension of the summer pool,” Cunningham said Monday. “The studies support it, yet Alabama Power is proposing much less than that, and without reason.”

Cunningham said he believes the changes would be a huge boost to the local economy.

Cunningham also said that Jim Crew, Alabama Power’s manager of hydro services, has said that conditions for a fall extension have only been right 25 percent of the time.

Cunningham said there is no documentation of that, however, and that he recently filed a letter of appeal to FERC in an attempt to get that documentation from Alabama Power.

Under current guidelines, Lake Martin’s winter pool is typically 481 feet mean sea level (msl) and the summer pool is 491 feet.

Alabama Power begins lowering the lake level in early September and it reaches winter level by the beginning of January.

The lake level begins rising again in mid-February and reaches summer pool by the end of April.

The HOBOs also discussed the progress of removal of waterway debris around Lake Martin from areas affected by the April 27 tornado.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said last week that they expect the mission to be complete “on or around July 29.”