The Maryville Daily Times has an update on all the work by the City of Alcoa and the City of Maryville to provide water for residents and the success of customer conservation efforts.

With the new pipeline running from the impounded part of Little River, Alcoa is in better shape. Maryville is still facing problems, and there's no rain in the forecast.

I found this quote from the article to be a little odd:

Maryville City Manager Greg McClain said, “Maryville and Alcoa have plenty of water now. What we’re dealing with are regulatory restrictions. We can get the water.”

Plenty of water? Has anybody gone out there and looked at Little River where the water treatment plants are or gone up what used to be the Y in Townsend?

He goes on the explain:

The city plans to try to get the cfs lowered because Alcoa now has a 16-million-gallon-a-day plant instead of a 24-million-gallon-a day plant. Part of Maryville’s cfs designation is based on the fact that there must be enough water left in the river past the Maryville plant to supply the Alcoa plant downstream.

In this context his remarks make a little more sense, as long as Alcoa would in fact have "plenty of water" downstream. On the other hand, it sounds like Alcoa might have actually, you know, planned for the future when they got their permit.

I don't know the guy, and maybe he's a Democrat and a paragon of progressive government, but "there's plenty of water, it's just a regulatory problem" sounds like more right-wing free market voodoo policy making.

The same article quotes assistant Maryville director of water quality control Jack Graham as saying the previous record low flow for Little River was 51 cfs in 1952. It was 41 Friday. That doesn't sound like plenty of water to me. And no amount of deregulation is going to make it rain or put more water in the river.