Coast Guard Confusion

“The Lake of the Ozarks is one of the most dangerous bodies of water in the United States according to Coast Guard boating statistics..."  - Captain Martin L. Malloy UMR Sector Commander, U.S.C.G as reported on LakeExpo.com June 20th, 2017

The article I'm referring to above showed up on LakeExpo.com on June 20th, breathlessly reported over the presence of the U.S. Coast Guard on the Lake of the Ozarks last weekend.  While I have no beef with LakeExpo in particular, I'm a little peeved at the contents of the article. Lake Expo has, as others have done in the past, promoted the idea that the U.S. Coast Guard has jurisdiction on the Lake of the Ozarks because it is considered a "navigable" waterway.

2018 UPDATE:  I've recently had a very nice conversation with the Public Affairs Office of the U.S.C.G regarding their jurisdiction on the Lake of the Ozarks. It would seem, my opinion is in error as far as they are officially concerned and that they indeed have complete authority on the lake as a law enforcement agency.  Which raises many questions. I'll be posting about this conversation and the reasoning behind their position regarding jurisdiction and authority soon and provide a link here.

The Lake of the Ozarks is NOT considered a "navigable" body of water. Although it meets the common sense notion of what a navigable body of water is (in fact it's extremely navigable!), the label "navigable" is assigned to waterways by the U.S. Congress under its commerce powers, and thus determines which federal agency has maritime authority over it. But I've discussed this all before while this line of crap continues to be used to justify the presence of the Coast Guard on the lake. The Coast Guard's enforcement authority is very limited here.  This is why there's usually a Missouri State Water Patrol boat right along side of them to do any real law enforcement. The MSWP is THE primary law enforcement authority on the Lake of the Ozarks. The Coast Guard doesn't show up periodically just to make sure they're doing a swell job enforcing laws.

But the real reason for this particular rant is what the commander of the Upper Mississippi River Sector was quoted saying about the Lake of the Ozarks, “The Lake of the Ozarks is one of the most dangerous bodies of water in the United States according to Coast Guard boating statistics."

If Lake Expo has accurately quoted Captain Malloy, then he's not reading his own reports. Yeah, this guy.  I'm sure he's a nice guy and all, but he needs to read his own damn reports.

I assume Malloy is citing the annual Coast Guard Recreational Boating Statistics report as the source of his assessment, but this report has never supported such a dubious claim. Granted, the report is at the state level and does not single out specific waterways, but I've been analyzing this report and it's relation to Water Patrol reported accidents on the Lake of the Ozarks for many years now, going back to 2004. While stories abound of injury or even death in the media, there is no statistical evidence to indicate the lake is any more (or less for that matter) dangerous than any other body of water in Missouri. You can read my analysis with a link to the latest CG report for yourself here.  Maybe my analysis is wrong, some assumptions must be made, but there is nothing in the report that points here saying, "Yep, that's a fairly dangerous lake you got there!".

I'm a Coast Guard veteran, and proud to have served, so I have no ax to grind with the Coast Guard (okay maybe with officer types since I was enlisted) but this nonsense needs to stop. Captain Malloy's comment is inaccurate and possibly self aggrandizing. The popularity of the Lake of the Ozarks is only growing and that guarantees a lot of press when bad things do happen, but to get an official statement from the sector commander of the Coast Guard that it is one of the most dangerous lakes in the country is either willfully ignorant, or a thinly veiled attempt to promote Coast Guard presence in the area.  Let's be clear, the Coast Guard is not relevant on the Lake of the Ozarks except to promote safety, affirm proper vessel documentation (Coast Guard registered vessels only!), and help herd boats during firework displays and racing events.  Their resources are better spent on other waterways where their law enforcement authority has real teeth, rather than trying to look like the big dog pissing in the tall weeds in our backyard.

Memorial Weekend 2017 Finds the Lake Still in Cleanup Mode

Since the Summer of 2017 begins in earnest this weekend, I thought we might take a look at lake conditions beforehand and get a little early jump on this month's chart.

Believe it or not, lake level and flow rates are still under the influence of the torrential rains at the end of April.  Let's take a look at Truman Lake first to see why we are still where we are with flow rates.

Ten Year Graph of Truman Lake Levels

Truman Lake is controlled by the Corps of Engineers while Lake of the Ozarks is not, but there is a Memorandum of Agreement which says Ameren must coordinate operations with the CoE, especially during flood events.  As we can see above Truman Lake reached its highest level in the last 10 years at the end of April, while Lake of the Ozarks barely exceeded 661ft, and only briefly at that. Between the two lakes, Truman did its job protecting the Lake of the Ozarks from a *major* flood event that would have surpassed 2015s (both of them). But with the rains subsiding this month, Ameren has kept flow rates through Bagnell Dam well above average in an attempt to lower Truman Lake.  It's a very slow process and will likely continue through the first holiday weekend.  With that in mind, let's take a look at May's levels and flow rates.

May of course started with the lake at it highest levels for the year, and likely the highest for the entire year.  Discharge from Bagnell Dam remains above full turbine flow which means flood gates are still partially open sustaining nearly 50,000cfs.  For Memorial weekend, lake levels are just slightly below the 5 year average, but doable for those of us in shallow waters. As for all that water that's passed through Bagnell Dam? We'll examine just how much water in the regular end of the month report when the final data comes in.

For now just be advised that the lake is (relatively) murky and full of debris coming down from Truman.  Running your boat will be a little more risky this weekend as debris is everywhere.  As for night running, I will definitely be adopting a cocktail cruise speed.  On plane even at legal speed will be very risky to your outdrives.

Be safe. Have fun.

April 2017 Lake Levels and Flow Rates - over 4ft in 24 hours!

I try not to be critical of Ameren when it comes to their stewardship of the lake or how they treat lake home owners, after all they are an energy company whose only real interest in the Lake of the Ozarks is how much power they can generate and sell while fulfilling their regulatory compliance requirement for having a percentage of that energy produced by "renewable" energy sources.

But when Ameren manages the lake without any apparent consideration for ecology or property? It pisses me off.

Is that a harsh criticism? Does a lake level one foot above full pool really cause issues?  In a word, no. A lake level of 661 is not a "flooding" event at the Lake.  What is an event is rapid change. Take a look at the level and flow chart for April.  See anything striking? It's not the 661 lake level itself, but how fast it got there that is the problem.

The forecast for potential flooding rains was anticipated early in the last week of April and Ameren, as to be expected, began ramping up turbine flow on Wednesday April 26th, with full flow by Friday the 28th. But as the rains fell Ameren surely watched as lake levels began to rise at an alarming rate. This rate of change continued for nearly a day with full turbine flow (35Kcfs) having little impact on lake levels. At it's most dramatic, the lake rose one foot in just four hours on Saturday.

Ameren saw this rapid rise but did nothing until Sunday, April 30th at 6:00am. With the lake at 660.51 the flood gates were finally opened. Let's be clear here. It wasn't until the lake's level punched through 660ft (full pool) that flood gates were opened Sunday morning. This means that in just under 24 hours the Lake of the Ozarks was allowed to rise over 4 feet!

Note: My statement above, that flood gates were not opened until the lake reached 660.51 feet, is (indirectly) disputed by Warren Witt, the Director of Hydro Operations at Bagnell Dam who was quoted as saying they were opened when the lake reached 659.5 feet in a later interview with  Lake Expo. But I'm going off Ameren's own data so you be the judge (zoom in on the above chart). From the above chart the flow rate was still about 35,000cfs when the lake was at 659.5. But Witt should know of course when the gates were opened, and it is certainly reasonable that there is a delay from the time flood gates open until the change in flow rates registers with Ameren's own sensors. Flow rates measured independently by USGS seem to back up his statement that the gates were opened at 6am, so I'll have to give the benefit of the doubt here.

I'd have to check my own records, but I'm pretty sure the floods of 2015, both of them, didn't rise so quickly.  This rate of change is highly disruptive to the ecosystem and damaging to the very shoreline that Ameren makes us lake home owners all bend over backwards to protect.

I would not argue that there was anything that could have been done to prevent reaching the 661ft level given the pressures from Truman Lake and the Osage River, but I believe an earlier opening of the flood gates would have made the rate of change a little more bearable.  Management Grade? D

Lake Accident Statistics for 2016

As part of the annual "How Safe is the Lake of the Ozarks" page update, here's the breakdown of incidents reported for all of 2016.  This is only for the the Lake of the Ozarks, and only those incidents reported by the Missouri Water Patrol.

In summary, some 133 incidents were reported last year and one breakdown is to look at the numbers by severity.

Number of Non-Injury Incidents 74
Fatal Incidents                           8
Serious Injury                                   9
Moderate Injury                         25
Minor Injury                                 17

Total                                              133

2016 didn’t start off well for boating and injury incidents on the lake, with the first fatality in January during and unseasonably warm weekend. The final breakdown of incidents for the year by description is as follows:

NEAR DROWNING                                                              2
FIRE/EXPLOSION (NON FUEL)                                              1
FIRE/EXPLOSION (UNKNOWN ORIGIN)                      4
COLLISION WITH FIXED OBJECT                                    18
COLLISION WITH WATERCRAFT                                    17
COLLISION WITH FLOATING OBJECT                              1
COLLISION WITH DOCKED WATERCRAFT                      8
CAPSIZING                                                                              3
GROUNDING                                                                      4
SWAMPING                                                                              1
DROWNING                                                                              6
PERSON(S) FALLS OVERBOARD                                      2
PERSON(S) IMPACTS WATERCRAFT                            34
PERSON(S) DEPARTS WATERCRAFT VOLUNTARILY      1
PERSON(S) STRUCK BY PROP/WATER JET                      4
PERSON(S) EJECTED FROM WATERCRAFT                      9
TOWED WATERSPORT MISHAP                                    18
Total                                                                                  133

From a "Fatality Rate" point of view, which is what next month's U.S.Coast Guard report for 2016 will focus on, the Lake of the Ozarks remains unchanged from 2015 with 8 fatalities and likely within the average for the entire state.

It may be possible to analyze this data into more meaningful risk assessments but would need to be looked at on an incident by incident basis for extenuating circumstances such as time of day. Incidents involving "fixed objects" is a top category, but what were the objects? No wake buoys? Docks?  Hit a no wake buoy and you might throw an outdrive, but hit a dock and serious damage and injury is likely.

As time goes on I'll keep these reports and start tracking them. With this kind of data we can begin to track trends, but at this time I see nothing to indicate the lake has become more, or less, dangerous than it has been in years past.  As the 2017 season begins in earnest, here's hoping that everyone has a safe and fun summer!

March 2017 Lake Levels and Flow Rates

Lake levels began rising on March 9th towards full pool by Memorial Weekend. March levels started low and remain about a half a foot under the five year moving average (in orange). Very modest power generation and days of rain should help bring the lake to normal conditions without difficulty. Summer is coming!

February 2017 Lake Levels and Flow Rates

A model February operational chart (see how closely it follows the 5 year moving average - in orange).  There's no guarantee lake levels won't dip lower over the next few weeks, but it appears we reached a winter drawdown low of 653.92ft on February 26th, about 10 days sooner than the average but just a couple of days sooner than my February 28th prediction. Not bad!

Flow rates were quite average as well and the lake should start rising slowly from current levels to about 656 by the end of March. If you're going to get any work done on the shoreline, time's awasting.

Lake Retailers Get A More Level Playing Field

Local lake retailers should be having a bit of a celebration.  Starting February 1st, 2017 (yes, it's already begun), any purchases from Amazon will be subject to a 4.225% sales tax.  No more window shopping at a brick and mortar store only to go home and purchase the same item tax free on Amazon. To be fair, the trend for the number of states imposing sales tax on Amazon purchases has only been going up over the past few years, and it won't be long before all states follow suit I imagine.

Although the law that makes this possible was passed in 2013, the conditions for it to take effect only happened recently as Amazon announced the expansion of distribution centers across the country and an additional 100,000 jobs, which will include Missouri I guess. These will not be good paying jobs of course, but no one qualified the push for job growth in the state with the requirement they had to be good ones. So in exchange for a presumably small number of unskilled labor jobs, all Missourians now get to pay more for their online purchases.

I'm sure retailers large and small find it frustrating that they lose business to Amazon, but as a consumer, I'm only interested in my own bottom line, which just took a nearly 5% hit. Is this good for state revenue?  It remains to be seen, but obviously it's a revenue enhancement of some kind.  What is clear is that for young tech savvy families just interested in saving money, the sales-tax free party is over.

Anecdotally: I have made a purchase on Amazon this month, but wasn't charged sales tax....hmm.

Of course, the story isn't as simple as I make it, but since we all seem to enjoy getting our news within our own bubbles, you can choose your own source for more details.

Conservative Fox news link.

Not So Conservative news link. (I don't know if the St. Louis Post-Dispatch would embrace being labeled a liberal news organization)

Don't say I never gave you choices.