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To All Events: The U.S. Military Corps of Engineers, Nashville District (USACE), is initiating scoping below the Nationwide Environmental Coverage Act (NEPA) to guage potential impacts of the proposed revision of the 1998 Wolf Creek Dam and Lake Cumberland Water Management Guide (WCM). The Wolf Creek WCM includes pertinent undertaking knowledge, background data, the plan for day-to-day and emergency water administration, and the consequences of the plan on licensed undertaking functions. 
Wolf Creek Dam is positioned at Mile 460.90 on the Cumberland River about 10 miles southwest of Jamestown, Kentucky. Lake Cumberland Reservoir is positioned in Clinton, Laurel, McCreary, Pulaski, Russell, Wayne, and Whitley Counties in Kentucky. The Reservoir is one in all 4 main flood threat administration reservoirs inside the Cumberland River Basin; the others being J. Percy Priest Reservoir, Dale Hole Reservoir, and Heart Hill Reservoir. Wolf Creek Dam was licensed for flood management in 1938 and hydropower in 1946. Development was accomplished in 1952. After building, Congress licensed further undertaking functions for all USACE initiatives together with recreation, water provide, fish and wildlife conservation, and water high quality.
Guests to Wolf Creek Dam and Lake Cumberland have various pursuits reminiscent of tenting, fowl watching, sightseeing, fishing, and paddling. Lake Cumberland Reservoir is persistently one of many prime fifty most-visited Corps of Engineers’ reservoirs within the nation, receiving over a million guests per 12 months.
The WCM ensures unbiased operations and informs the general public of mission priorities. The aim of the proposed motion is to replace the Wolf Creek Dam and Lake Cumberland WCM to incorporate present undertaking operations below the present congressional authorizations. The WCM replace would tackle components reminiscent of adjustments in basin hydrology, new and rehabilitated structural options, and environmental concerns. The up to date WCM would additionally comprise information of institutional information to stop the lack of operational experience and updates of Corps phrases and definitions which have modified for the reason that guide was final up to date.
Beneath are some present operations the Corps is contemplating updating:
• Hydropower Ramp Charges – This fee describes the variety of producing models that could possibly be turned on or off over a sure period of time. The 1998 WCM permits for 3 models per hour up or down.
• Sluice and Orifice Gate Operation – The sluice and orifice gates launch extremely oxygenated water from the reservoir to the tailwater. The sluice gates sit on the base of the dam and are operated manually. The orifice gates are perforated metal plates which are positioned over two of the sluice gate openings to restrict movement from roughly 1500 to roughly 250 cubic toes per second (CFS). Each sluice and orifice gates can enhance dissolved oxygen downstream when water high quality is degraded as a consequence of heat summer season temperatures. The 1998 Water Management Guide doesn’t tackle the discharge of water that may bypass hydropower generators aside from in instances of flood threat administration.
• Dissolved Oxygen (DO) Diffusor System – A newly constructed dissolved oxygen DO diffusor system is about to be accomplished in 2026. It’s designed to enhance the water high quality of turbine releases, thereby lowering the necessity to launch water by way of the orifice and sluice gates.
The Corps of Engineers’ purpose is to assemble enter from all stakeholders and finest stability all of the reservoir’s licensed undertaking functions. The Corps of Engineers will consider enter submitted to find out the right NEPA class of motion (categorical exclusion, environmental evaluation, or environmental affect assertion). This letter serves to solicit scoping feedback from the general public, federal, state, native companies and officers, and different events with the intention to think about and consider the impacts of this proposed exercise as a part of the Corps’ planning course of and in accordance with the NEPA course of. We encourage feedback not solely about sources within the fast undertaking space, but in addition of plans or proposals for another improvement that will affect or affect undertaking sources. Feedback are used to evaluate impacts on the human surroundings.
Feedback could also be despatched by e-mail to corpslrnplanningpubliccom@usace.military.mil, no later than thirty calendar days from the date of this letter. If you’re unable to entry an e-mail account, you could ship written feedback to U.S. Military Corps of Engineers Nashville District, 110 ninth Avenue South, Room A405, Nashville, TN, 37203-3852, ATTN: CELRN-PMP (Brad Potts). For extra data concerning the proposed undertaking, please contact Mr. Potts at (931)-310-2596. Your participation is enormously appreciated.
Sincerely,
Valerie McCormack, Ph.D.
Chief, Mission Planning Department
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