This column has been corrected to state that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers accidentally released 22 billion gallons of water from Lake Lanier in 2006.

Hounding the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is the closest thing to a legal bloodsport left in the South.

At one of the Corps’ periodic “open houses” in the last drought from May 1998 to August 2002, lake dwellers were like salivating pit bulls as they tore into the latest official explanation that a) the Corps wasn’t draining the lake to fatten the Southeastern Power Administration’s profits. And b) it couldn’t just quit sending water downstream because of federal environmental requirements for the Savannah River.

It was easy then to feel sorry for the Corps representatives.

Maybe that’s why I think the Corps’ deserves at least a little credit for so far minimizing the impact of an “exceptional” drought covering more or less all of the Upstate and northeast Georgia.

Despite this year’s record rainfall deficit of 16.87 inches — besting by half an inch the previous record set in 2000 — Hartwell Lake is only at its sixth-lowest level, 10 feet lower than full pool of 660 but way above the record low of 642 feet.

Looking at boat docks towering over sandy shorelines and grass growing where water once ebbed still leaves a pit in the stomach, of course.

But visitors, residents, Realtors, small business owners, tourism officials and economic developers should count their blessings that Hartwell doesn’t look like the mud puddle greater Atlanta’s Lake Lanier has become.

Georgia’s warning that Atlanta will be out of water for basic needs by early 2008 should make anyone’s toes curl.

Predictably, the Corps got shellacked by Gov. Sonny Perdue, despite the agency’s protestations about federal requirements, again. (It probably deserved some jib after the accidental release of 22 billions gallons from Lanier in 2006.)

On this side of the border, though, the headline is: The system worked.

In 2006, the Corps followed through with major changes to the protocols governing water releases during a drought — doubtless spurred on by the years of dedicated lobbying by the Lake Hartwell Association and the politicians who represent its members.

Obviously, we’re not out of the woods.

The National Weather Service’s 90-day outlook predicts above normal

temperatures and below normal precipitation, so lake levels will continue their decline.

In fact, the Corps expects to reach its Drought Level 3, the worst, in mid-December, although it will reduce discharges to 3,600 cubic feet per second — 5 percent more than what its plan calls for — as a result.

The Corps holds another “open house” in Anderson Nov. 14 at the Hilton Garden Inn on Exit 19 off Interstate 85. The drop-in is from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and formal presentations are scheduled at 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Arrive early for the show.