When ‘dragons’ threaten Lake Wylie, they sit ready. But too many seats are empty.

Water experts from throughout the region gathered recently to iron out some of the biggest issues facing the Catawba River. They just couldn’t do much about them.

There weren’t enough experts there.

“This is not going to work,” said Rick Lee, former chairman of the Catawba-Wateree River Basin Advisory Commission. “We’ve got to figure out a new path.”

The bi-state group didn’t have a quorum of its membership. Commissioners present listened to plans for the river. The heard of projects designed to keep water flowing through Lake Wylie clean, of making sure there is enough of it in the basin for generations to come. They just couldn’t vote on anything.

Part of the issue was bad luck. The group scheduled a time when legislators weren’t in session, but North Carolina called its members in, so none from that state were present at the commission meeting. Finding times that work with both legislatures is key, as the initial aim of the group was to bring lawmakers together for joint solutions.

But finding those times never has been easy.

“It has persisted just about since the group was established,” Chairman Barry Gullet, director of Charlotte Water, said of scheduling problems.

The commission first met in 2005, established a year earlier by resolutions from both state legislatures. The idea was to put decision-makers and water experts together to tackle topics facing the region.

The legislation forming the group lists membership requirements. Both states should send two representatives and two senators. Duke Energy gets a seat. So do marine commissions, to include the Lake Wylie Marine Commission. Individual seats go to a South Carolina utility, North Carolina nonprofit conservation group, South Carolina lake homeowner association, Charlotte organization and a since dissolved bi-state task force.

The group also could appoint new members.

Right now, about half the seats are empty. Legislators roll off and aren’t immediately replaced. Organization leaders change. Organizations themselves change.

Tim Mead, who also sits on the Lake Wylie Marine Commission, has his seat on the bi-state group as representative of a task force that dissolved about the time the bi-state group formed. It’s still included in the forming legislation, so he still participates. When there are enough members present.

“We can’t do anything,” Mead said.

For members present at the most recent meeting earlier this month, part of the frustration is knowing how important the group can be with full participation. The commission was integral in bringing the Carolinas together on the issue of interbasin transfer, after a North Carolina water withdrawal from non-basin municipalities Concord, N.C. and Kannapolis, N.C. spurred South Carolina to sue its upstream state in a case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Commission members worked to hammer out a resolution. When one came, it was announced at a 2010 bi-state group meeting in Rock Hill.

Group members also have been pivotal getting the region through its record 2007 drought and subsequent droughts, with water supply management plans to extend the life of the river for public use, regional drought response coordination and Duke Energy’s federal hydroelectric relicensing plan impacting everything from water flow to recreation sites.

Though the river and its lakes have important issues going on now, there isn’t anything like the contentious interbasin transfer issue that guaranteed a big crowd.

“It’s apparent that we have a challenge,” Lee said. “And right now we don’t have a dragon to slay.”

While the group once met at least two or three times a year, the commission hadn’t gathered in the same room prior to the last meeting since February of 2016, though they did hold a telephone conference last October.

The group is going to try to get together one more time before the end of this year. The goal is to get answers on who is still serving and what seats need appointments. For some, it’s a matter of addressing the turnover. S.C. Sen. Wes Climer met with the group at the last meeting and could soon have a seat. Other area representatives are new and could be added, like state Rep. Bruce Bryant, who took over when former group member Ralph Norman left his state house seat for a federal one.

Gullet, who is retiring from his Charlotte Water role at the end of the year, wants to see strong leadership from the group with more than a decade now of helping solve some of the biggest environmental and economic issues facing the Catawba basin.

It may be a matter of waiting until the next great crisis befalls the basin. And hoping there is someone in place then to help solve it.

“I’m not really sure when dragon season opens, or what the dragon population is nowadays,” Gullet said.

This story was originally published October 19, 2017 at 12:56 PM with the headline "When ‘dragons’ threaten Lake Wylie, they sit ready. But too many seats are empty.."