Atlanta Water Shortage

A few weeks ago, Cumming extended their intake pipe by about 50 feet to help it reach deeper into the lake.  Next Monday they’ll begin the $1 million, 2-4 week process of dredging the bottom of the lake to help them reach even deeper water.

They plan to lower the level of the lake at their intake from 1,040 feet to 1,030 feet, then build a channel into deeper areas of the lake.  They also announced that they have phase three of their emergency plan ready to go if things get worse; floating a barge and using high-pressure pumps to bring water to their plant.

The city has set aside money that “should cover” all of the costs next year.

The only problem I see is that this plan still relies on Lake Lanier.  I don’t have a better solution for them, but Lanier is going to drain pretty quickly if things keep going like they are.   As far as I know, Lawrenceville is the only area to have a plan in place for that situation, but I still expect others to develop their own pretty soon.

Between the rain we might get in the next few days and the holidays coming up, I have a feeling that a lot of people are going to be putting this on the back burner until after Christmas.  If things don’t make a dramatic change between now and then, I think people will really start freaking out in January when they realize how much worse things are becoming.

It seems a bit premature for this, but 11Alive has a story of a DeKalb business that was getting water stolen from one of their outside faucets.

Apparently, trucks with water tanks would park outside of Gary’s Auto Shop on the weekends and fill up using water from their front faucet.

At this point, I can’t figure out what the motive is.  Water prices haven’t gone up (though they should) and no one has run out yet.  I certainly expect we’ll see more of this in the coming months, but I’m surprised to see it happening already.

An article this past Sunday in the AJC (thanks to Stephen for the link) goes into detail about how much water is used to generate electricity.

I think this sums it up best (bold emphasis mine):

Government agencies, however, have calculated that thermoelectric plants with once-through cooling use an average of 25 gallons of water to produce one kilowatt hour of power.

The average Georgia household burns 1,100 kilowatt hours of electricity a month. That translates to about 27,000 gallons of water.

By comparison, a family of four goes through about 9,000 gallons a month for household uses such as washing clothes, flushing toilets and showering.

It sounds like we should be bragging about how much we’ve reduced our electric usage each month, not just our water. However, I’ve not heard anything from our leaders about reducing electricity to help with the drought — but I think we should.

Sara Barczak, who was quoted in that AJC article, helped write this PDF titled “Climate change implications for Georgia’s water resources and energy future”, from the 2007 Georgia Water Resources Conference back in March of this year. It’s a long document, but well worth reading.

About an hour ago, Lake Lanier reached its lowest level since it was first created in the 1950’s.

The previous low of 1052.66 feet was set in December, 1981. As of right now, the lake is sitting at 1052.64 feet.

We’ve still got about 17 feet to go until the “dead pool” at 1035 feet, but we continue to move in that direction. CBS News had a recent story about what it would mean for us in terms of purification if we reach that level.

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There are approximately 1500 churches in the metro Atlanta area, so I thought it would be interesting to see how they’re trying to save water.

I found a list of the 25 largest churches (paper list — sorry, no link) and e-mailed them all and asked what they’re trying to do to save water. I was quite disappointed that most of them didn’t take the time to respond.  I sent the e-mail about three weeks ago, so they’ve had plenty of time.

Since I personally work at a church, I’ve been trying to think of things we can do to cut back. It’s tough to figure out. Our main use (now that we obviously don’t water the grass anymore) is likely from the restrooms, so we make sure nothing is leaking. Beyond that, though, what can be done? I had hoped to gain insight from the churches that responded.

Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta stopped watering their new installs a while back, despite having a permit to do so. This saved nearly 500,000 gallons/month.

First Baptist Church in Woodstock followed a similar plan. Prior to the watering ban, they cut back on irrigating and they are very stringent about ensuring that no sinks, toilets or water fountains are leaking. They also are looking at retrofitting to automatic sink and toilet fixtures, which could save some water.

I had a few churches tell me that they were forwarding my e-mail onto so-and-so that could answer my questions, but then I never heard back.

So where does that leave us?  I see three problems:

• First, these churches as a whole have horrible customer service.  I know this is something that many churches work very hard at, so the complete lack of response from so many churches was pretty sad.  Only four replied at all and only two of those took the time to answer my questions.  The other 21 churches apparently were too ashamed to admit that they’ve done nothing to help save water.
• Second, obviously, churches aren’t doing much to help save water.
• Finally, churches don’t know what to do to help save water.

So I’m asking you: what can churches do to help conserve water?  The techniques we use at home don’t really apply (put a bucket in the shower, brush your teeth differently, etc), so what can be done?

Studies tend to show that about 20-40% of the US attends church each week.  With five million people in Atlanta, that’s 1-2 million people per week.  There’s a lot of water that could be saved.

Before anyone suggests it, this isn’t the place to talk about the whole “pray for rain” thing.  I’m simply curious to see legitimate suggestions that any church (from 10 members to 10,000 members) could take and use.

According to the Lawrenceville Weather Blog, our short-term outlook is pretty good. The summary of their article:

• Pleasant weather through Wednesday.
• 1/2 inch of rain late Thursday or Friday morning.
• Rain again on Tuesday, 11/27 until Thursday, 11/29.
• Another storm the first weekend in December.

They point out that we’ll still be well below our normal for the month (and way below our yearly total), but it’s a good start.

Their forecast seems to jive pretty well with Weather.com 10-day forecast. However, the Accuweather.com 15-day forecast is a bit different though it still shows rain on a handful of days. In any case, this looks to be pretty good news.

After fears of drought 20 years ago, Clayton county took action.  They built a series of 21 man-made wetlands and reservoirs that allow them to collection 10 million gallons of wastewater each day and convert it to drinking water.

While they still might have problems in about a year, they’ll last much longer than Atlanta will.

It’s a tale of thinking ahead; something the Atlanta leaders have failed miserably to do.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided that the flow from Lake Lanier can be reduced, but the flow cannot go down by 16% as first planned (view the PDF that they released).  Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has said that Florida may sue if less water is sent to them, so expect that to happen shortly.

Instead, they’re allowing a 10% reduction (5% at first, 10% soon after), which cuts the necessary flow in Florida from 5,000 cfs (3.23 billion gallons/day) to 4,500 cfs (2.9 billion gallons/day).

Some news agencies are a bit confused about what this means. This does not mean a 10% reduction in the amount of water coming from Lake Lanier. It means a 10% reduction in the amount of water that must reach Apalachicola Bay, which then results in an unknown reduction in the amount released from Lake Lanier.

To maintain the necessary flow rate at the bay, the Corps has to factor in all of the water users south of Buford dam, as well as all of the small creeks and tributaries that feed back in. Because of the creeks that feed into the river, Lanier can provide less than 5,000 cfs and the river will gain the rest of the water from other sources as it heads south.

The outflow from Lanier varies a bit from day to day, but 3,500 cfs is a typical number lately. Assuming that was consistent, it could now drop to 3,000 cfs which would be about a 15% reduction. I think that’s a fair number to use for now.

Of course if things keep drying up, those other creeks and tributaries will provide less and less water the river, which means the releases from Lanier will need to slowly keep climbing.  Also, as we’ve said before, as the lake level gets lower the level will begin to drop faster and faster.

I’ve heard a number of sources say that this means that instead of 79 days left (still don’t know how they came to that number), we now have more than a year.  I have no clue where that number came from.  Anyone have any idea?

A decision is due tomorrow on the now-famous 16% reduction that we’ve been talking about for a few weeks.  The bottom line is whether or not the federally protected mussels can live with less water.  If so, that’s exactly what they’ll get.

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue is obviously in favor of the reduction, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley is ok with it (as long as their nuclear plant gets enough water) and Florida Gov.  Charlie Crist is against the reduction.  No matter what the Fish and Wildlife Service decides, someone is going to be very unhappy.

The article also mentions that “we have 79 days” of drinking water left in Lanier, but they gave no indication of where that number came from.  Is that assuming the reduction goes through?  Or not?  What about rain?  Does it count the dead pool?  No idea…

Hopefully once a decision is made on the reduction, we can start to see some realistic “days left” estimates that are backed up with some supporting figures.

The AJC has put together a nice map showing all of the major users (water systems, industrial, power plants and recreational) along the Chattahoochee river basin — 36 users highlighted in all.

Seeing this helps to explain why so much water is released from Lanier each day.  The water from there needs to feed all of those places and still be at 5,000 cfs (3.2 billion gallons/day) when it is in Florida.

However, there are many small creeks and rivers that feed into the river to help reach the 5,000 cfs flow.  The problem is that all of those rivers are running below normal, which means they have to drain even more water from Lanier to help make up for it.

The 16% reduction that may or may not happen starting today would be a reduction in that 5,000 cfs mandate, lowering it 4200 cfs.  This would mean that the releases from Lanier could be reduced a bit, though they might see a slow increase after that to compensate for less and less help from the other rivers feeding into the Chattahoochee.