got caught with their pants down ...and the pallid sturgeon in the bed next to them.
A picture from the Fish and Wildlife Service of an Army Corps of Engineers employee with a pallid sturgeon.
Though the letter from the Brigadier General that leads the report talks about the "much above" average runoff in 2009 and 2010, according to pages 3 and 4 of THIS REPORT, the Army Corps of Engineers only considered up to 2006 when planning on the 2010-2012 management of the reservoirs, dams, and the river.
Why not include the recent wet years? Why not consult the weather experts? Because, as it says on page 4 of the Corps' Annual Operating Report (linked above), 'forecasting future precipitation is very difficult."
That may be, but that's exactly what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration does! If fact, had the Corps consulted THIS REPORT FROM THE NOAA, they would have realized how wrong they were to err on the side of drought rather than flood.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20101021_winteroutlook.html
Did they think 2011 was going to be a drought year because their 1998-2006 data (mostly drought years) told them so?
Or did they plan on some flooding this year to influence landowners
(http://www.kfab.com/pages/voorhees.html?article=8760398)
to sell their property?
http://www.kfab.com/pages/voorhees.html?article=8760398
The Corps always says they just follow orders. Well, one of their owners was to get that riverside land ... a little flooding might do the trick. When the huge snow and rain erupted, the little flood they hoped for turned into this big, scary flood.
