MOBILE —  The Mobile District office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last week announced it will hold four public open houses later this month in advance of its ongoing efforts to update the Water Control Manual (WCM) for the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa (ACT) River Basin, which includes Weiss Lake.

The public is invited to attend the meetings, which the Corps declared in a press release dated Feb. 28 will provide information on the WCM and a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), also in the works.

The DEIS will contain the Corps’ analysis of the environmental effects of several proposals being considered for the ACT River Basin Master Water Control Manual, which is scheduled to be released by the Corps in October.

“The Corps evaluated and array of potential water management alternatives during the WCM update process, resulting in the selection of the Proposed Action Alternative,” said Public Affairs Officer E. Patrick Robbins in the release. “Under the PAA, the Corps would continue to operate the ACT as a system in a balanced manner to achieve all authorized project purposes.”

The PAA currently offers several changes to current operations, including a revised drought plan with enhancements recommended by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, seasonal navigation releases and seasonal maintenance dredging that would mainly benefit the Alabama River below Montgomery, guide curve and action zone changes at Allatoona and Carters lakes upstream from the Coosa River in Georgia, and new seasonal flow requirements below Carters Dam.

The revised plans also call for implementation of a “drought contingency curve” on all Alabama Power storage projects, which includes Weiss.

The meetings will begin March 25 at the Cobb Conference Center in Kennesaw, Ga. Rome Ga.’s Forum Civic Center will host a meeting March 26 at 8 p.m. (ET).

Meetings in Alabama will be held March 27 at the Senior Activity Center in Gadsden (4 p.m.) and the Auburn University-Montgomery Center for Lifelong Learning the following afternoon at 5 p.m.

An online version of the DEIS and its many appendices is available at www.sam.usace.army.mil. Cds will be available at the meetings, or can be ordered by sending a written request to Commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, Attn: PD-EI (ACT-DEIS), P.O. Box 2288, Mobile, AL 36628.”