White Paper · FERC Project No. 2210

The 2026 Smith Mountain Lake Drawdown

Why the lake sits roughly 5.6 feet below full pond — reconstructed from six years of SML+ monitoring data, USGS stream gauges, PJM market data, and the project’s FERC license. Includes the findings, every source, and seven recommendations for changing the rules.

Read the white paper (PDF)

This paper is free. If you found it useful, help local kids build a robot.

I wrote this paper on my own time, and there's nothing in it for me. If you find the paper useful, consider supporting the Wave Riding Robots — a local FIRST Tech Challenge robotics team based here at Smith Mountain Lake, competing against programs from Northern Virginia and Maryland with many times their budget. They punch well above their weight, and the cost of robot parts add up fast.

Support the team


Disclosure: I’m a volunteer mentor for the team. No donations come to me or to SML+.