Edmonson Water Pleads Case to Lawmakers As River Intakes Reach Critical Condition From Dam Projects

Many Questions Still Remain Unanswered

The Edmonson County Water District hosted a meeting today to discuss critical conditions at the Green River.

Darren Doyle, story and photos:
Edmonson County Water District Manager Tony Sanders, members of the Edmonson County Water Commission, and staff members spoke to representatives of Senator Mitch McConnell, Senator Rand Paul, and Congressman Brett Guthrie today in a meeting where the condition of the intakes for the Water District in the Green River have reached a critical condition.

Also present at the meeting was State Rep. Michael Meredith as well as representatives from local tourism, business owners, engineers, and other elected officials.

Mr. Kelly Rosser, a diver from Green River Commercial Diving, which is a contractor with Edmonson Water, showed video and photos of intakes at the bottom of Green River that were nearly covered in sand and sediment. This keeps the intakes from working and Sanders said that if water levels reach where they did last year, Edmonson County Water customers could face a very difficult situation.

Kelly Rosser of Green River Commercial Diving speaks about what he discovered with the current intake system.

"I've worked for many water plants over the state of Kentucky, some in Tennessee, we did a little bit up in Indiana and Ohio," Rosser said. "I've seen a little bit of many different types of intakes. From large to small, but I will say as far as what I see here in Edmonson County and Brownsville, it's probably one of the most critical situations right now, out of any of the water plants I've worked with."

Green River Lock and Dam #6 failed back in 2016 and was removed in March of 2017 under the direction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. At that time, the process was celebrated by federal, state, and local officials, as it was supposed to increase canoes, kayaking, and similar recreational activities on the Green River; however, once Lock and Dam #5 in Roundhill was partially removed in September of 2021, the water levels in Brownsville drastically dropped. Erosion all along the Nolin River caused trees and logs to clog up canoe and kayak routes as well.  Houchins Ferry was removed years ago and Green River Ferry in Mammoth Cave constantly shuts down with little notice.

Lock #6 was removed because it failed and posed a huge safety issue, but Sanders said today that Lock #5 was removed for other reasons.

"I don't think Lock and Dam #5 was structurally going to fail. It was removed to get the river back to it's natural state before the dam was put in," Sanders said. "There's some endangered species with mussels and things, the way I understand it after talking to fish and wildlife, around Lock #5. So that is part of the reason, to get it back to it's natural state and where fish and mussels and things can repopulate."

Several in attendance murmured at the notion that mussels and fish were seemingly prioritized over the Water District's approximately 11K customer accounts, which equates to approximately 30K people in Edmonson, Grayson, and Hart Counties. The boat ramp at Brownsville is inaccessible to trailers, and canoe and kayakers have to carry their vessels a long way to have access. It was discussed at today's meeting that there is currently no boat ramp access from Lock #5 in Roundhill all the way to Green River Ferry.

Tony Sanders, General Manager for Edmonson County Water District speaks at today's meeting.

Multiple Water District employees spoke today about the difficulty of the treatment of water as a result of the sand and sediment. Filtering becomes problematic and workdays that were once 8 to 12 hours for water treatment workers are now becoming 14-16 hour days. Increased costs could eventually lead to higher rates for customers.

During the drought situation that was faced last year, the U.S.ACE halted the dam removal at #5 until a solution could be obtained. Edmonson Water Commissioner Barry Rich said whatever solution that was supposed to be should have happened far before now.

Edmonson County Judge/Executive Scott Lindsey said that current water levels are already a foot below where officials were told they would be once the dam was removed. The bigger problem with that is that the dam has only been partially removed.

"When we first caught this problem, we thought we would have this resolved within a few weeks, well, here we're fixing to go back in the same situation. In a month or so it's going to be a year, and they haven't told us anything," Rich said.

Sanders said the planning and scheduling for today's meeting started two months ago but scheduling conflicts kept bringing delays. He said today was suggested by the Corps but he got an email yesterday that he said stated no one would be available to attend from the Corps.

David Phemister, State Director of the Nature Conservancy speaks at the meeting.

Sanders said the purpose of today's meeting was to first educate community leaders and the media of the dire situation that Edmonson Water faces, and to ask for action to be taken.

"It seems that with the removal of the dams, we have had a change in the river flow and stream," Sanders said. "That depth of water is not there anymore. My concern is, with a new intake, or moving them out further, it's not going to take care of the problem. Unfortunately, I don't have the answers, though. The only thing I can think of is that something is going to have to be built below our intake or some type of structure that can hold a pool of water that is deep enough for us to be able to get water out of there."

Sanders later said that the Corps and the Nature Conservancy have partnered together to work on a solution. He said the Nature Conservancy now has a new engineering firm that is supposed to be benifical. He credited them for their eagerness to work with the District.

Sanders noted that when Nolin Lake began to drop the level of the lake to winter pool, the district received many customer complaints of discolored water that had an odor. Water from the lake is released into Nolin River at the dam, and the water comes from the bottom of the lake where most of the bacteria and dark mud is. He said that while the water was still safe to drink, people were still unhappy, and he understood why.

"The water quality that was released was so bad and the amount of water that we had left in the river to help dilute that, it was just about untreatable," Sanders said.

Normally, this doesn't affect water quality too much because the level of the Green River is enough to dilute to lake water, which has been easily treatable in the past.

"People want good-smelling, and good-tasting water," He added.

Rep. Michael Meredith said studies back several years ago showed Lock #6 could have been repaired cheaper than being removed. That didn't happen and the dam failed, forcing a removal.

At several times during the meeting, Sanders said something along the lines of "that's a question for the Corps," who obviously wasn't there. He said the Corps asked to have a separate meeting in a couple weeks at the Nolin Lake office with a much smaller audience with no media. Also, at multiple times during the meeting, different speakers said the Water District was "at the mercy of the Corps."

We reached out to the Nolin office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and asked why no one was present at today's meeting. They referred us to Abby Korfhage, Public Affairs Specialist, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville District, who emailed a response. She said she would speak with her team in the morning and provide more information and then stated the following:

“Green River Dam No. 5 removal efforts were temporarily suspended in July 2022 due to concerns from the Edmonson County Water District regarding water levels. We fully understand the concerns from ECWD, and their water supply remains of utmost importance. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Louisville District, in partnership with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and The Nature Conservancy, have worked collectively over the last year to perform additional surveys, data analysis and additional modeling to further analyze the effects of dam removal on water levels in the river under varying conditions. We will continue coordination with ECWD in the coming weeks. USACE is committed to keeping our stakeholders and the public informed as we collectively move forward.”

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***Update: 5/26/23: We received the following statement from Abby Korfhage, Public Affairs Specialist, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville District on Friday at 2:03PM regarding the meeting yesterday:

"The information you have surrounding The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Louisville District’s participation in Edmonson County Water District’s public meeting yesterday is not accurate. The Corps has been in frequent communication with ECWD and has worked collaboratively with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and The Nature Conservancy over the past year to perform additional surveys, data analysis and additional modeling to further analyze the effects of dam removal on water levels in the river under varying conditions. We will continue coordination with ECWD in the coming weeks. USACE is committed to keeping our stakeholders and the public informed as we collectively move forward."

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Representatives from the offices of Senator McConnell, Senator Paul, and Rep. Guthrie who were in attendance, all agreed that local lawmakers at the federal level are in support of the Water District. 

After the meeting, we asked Tony Sanders how he felt the meeting went.

"I thought the meeting went well," he replied. "I feel that everything was explained and presented well, and the true situation was brought to light."

We also asked if nothing changes, what does the immediate future look like for Edmonson Water customers?

"I don't really know," he said. "The problem is, so much sediment is covering the intake. If water gets as low as it did last year, things are going to be very difficult."