William Villafranca

Wainwright, David
From: vplusten <vplusten @aol.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2014 7:01 PM
To: Bashaw, Justin P SAW
Cc: vincentvillafranca @ gmail.com; Iizvillafranca520 @gmail.com; VlORun @aol.com;
MorgxVilla513 @aol.com
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Proposal for Jordan lake
Dear Mr. Bashaw,
I appreciate the opportunity to comment on circulators planned for Jordan Lake. I've been around since they
first dammed the lake and have witnessed the deterioration of the water quality, the fishing and the perimeter
buffer zone. Most of this shouldn't be a surprise. If my favorite gamelands hunting areas are being silently
converted to State Parks, archery -only lands or disappearing completely from public use, as they are around
Jordan Lake, then undeniably the neighborhood development has been allowed to encroach on the lake. I'm
talking about the neighborhoods along Stagecoach Road, 751 near Southpoint, and Chapel Hill, and western
Cary, to name a few. Only those of us who have been around long enough to witness it and have a dog in the
fight have a voice against it. But the developers' big money speaks louder than my lifetime gamelands permit,
apparently. Add up the yard and golf course fertilizer businesses, and the home brew lawns, and try to tell me
the deterioration of the water quality is a surprise. Maybe they should have had a lake property excise tax; and
I'm from the conservative right side!
What would it take to release the water downstream from the bottom of the dam? They do it in Texas that way
and it has several great benefits. That cold, bottom of the lake water can be good for the downstream water
conditions, as well as, improving the lake water from which it comes, particularly if the money used on the
circulators is used to pump a portion of the released water back upstream. From there, it can be returned to the
top layers of the water column providing oxygen and reducing the temperature that the algae like. I certainly
don't have those financial numbers, but I understand it's being done in other places.
The example that I'm thinking of is Lake Austin, Austin, Texas. It's cold water skiing even in the middle of the
South Texas summer! Another quality of that lake is that there are restaurants and marinas on the lake's edge
downtown. Somebody there is doing something environmentally and economically correct with the Colorado
River water to have those ammenities.
The fear of drought on the drinking water probably keeps us from this next idea, maybe then the best reason for
construction of additional water sources, but what about performing one -third lake level purges like those
conducted on upstream mountain lakes as they prepare for winter run -off? In general this suggestion
acknowledges that Jordan Lake water is allowed to get stale and methods should be considered for large
exchanges of stored water.
Get r Done! I can't stand taking my perfectly polished "Miss Sharon," white fiberglass boat to Jordan Lake in
the summer time. I'd rather remove the salt of the ocean than that green stain from a ten minute run in "fresh"
water.
Know who this is now? Hi, Justin! It's Bill Villafranca! I pulled Monday's newspaper out of the bag on
Wednesday, finally, while getting some work done on my car and there's your article. Glad to see such a
positive contribution being made to our society from a child I watched grow up!

No seriously, I think this is a crazy, wasteful idea that needs to have a successful track record on a smaller scale
lake that is not in such dire need of quick improvement. I've seen and been to the Columbia R. system, Grand
Coulie Dam, where they had to provide the salmon climbing steps, and its lakes. I've also been to many
river /dam situations on the Colorado R., like Meed and Havasu. I spent three years in Omaha, reading and
listening to everything from the health of the South Platte in Colorado behind the Air Force Academy that
provides great trout fishing, then leaves CO for NE and the Missouri R., to issues in OK and LA with the Red
River system. Thinking of this just now myself, wherever I've been with the military or commercial flying, I've
kept my nose to the glass appreciating our great waterway systems, particularly with an interest to fishing there
some day. You'd have to live in a vacuum, especially as an outdoorsman, not to hear about the environmental
conditions of these systems when living there for any period of time. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this
technique, although maybe in experimenal use, has not proven itself effective yet, right?
Back even further, I'm from Lake Ronkonkoma, LI, NY, named after the 80'+ deep, 2.5 mile across lake formed
by the glacier age. The so- called bottomless lake had experienced pollution problems back in the 60s - 80s. It
was on the road to improvement before I left in '77, but now has much better water clarity and supports a
healthy stock of big musky, in addition to the yellow perch and bass that I used to catch. Can we learn anything
from them? No doubt they'll talk about run -off from the homes built nearby as summer beach homes for city
dwellers, and the chemicals used, like DDT. Granted, they don't have the stress of the southern summer heat.
But in those deep glacial lakes areas there has to be some pre- existing successful coorporate knowledge in
recovering deep water pollution that we can use before millions is spent in experimental stirrers.
If nothing else, I concur, Jordan Lake is in serious trouble. I just don't think we have done the more obvious
measures, made the hard decisions of protection and cleansing, that we are supposed to before we put millions
in an unproven system. Clean upstreams and eliminate the sources. I wish you great success.
Sincerely,
William B. Villafranca
Major, USAFR(RET.)
Captain ATP major airlines
Lifetime fisherman and hunter
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