In a recent letter, "Crisis Over Shrinking Water Levels", Russell Hatfield stated, "when a permit is received to do any excavation in the (Logan Martin)  lake bottom (and the permit now costs $250), there is an allowable limit of only 300 cubic yards that can be removed. Why is this not virtually unlimited?"
 
To many, the establishment of an allowable limit of lake bottom removal(or deposit thereto) of a trifling, insignificant 300 cubic yards of dirt in a lake of four hundred forty million (440,924,000) cubic yards of water, is inexplicable.
 
On an average day, Alabama Power Company passes over it's Logan Martin Dam, over ninety five million (95,999,904) cubic yards of water - plus some lakeside owner's measly allowable water equivalent of three hundred (300) cubic yards of dirt that day.
 
Unlike appropriate provisions established for the control of major excavation projects that are of a magnitude that might endanger the lake and river environment, the "Karnacial" hand-picked, minuscule allowable limit of only 300 cubic yards of excavation is of no possible redeeming calculable value to the power company, to the community or to the environment.
 
Conversely, there are damaging consequences, the major one being the pointless damage to Alabama Power Company goodwill.
 

 
Armond "Si" Simmons
Pell City, AL 35128
 
104 Wadsworth Lane
205 338 7378
psysim@coosahs.net