Atlanta Water Shortage

I’ve updated the site search feature that you see on the right side of our home page. This one is powered by Google, which offers a few advantages, along with one disadvantage.

The disadvantage is that it can only search for items that Google knows about. This means that items that are only a day or two old might not show up. The old one searched our database directly, so it automatically knew about every post.

However, the old search box could only search the text in the posts that I write, and nothing else. This one will search the posts, the comments, the forums and the wiki. Being able to search all of those from one place seems to be our best move.

I hope it helps you find what you’re looking for!

For the first two months of running this blog (October 15 - December 15), Lake Lanier got lower every single day.  December 15th was the first day that we saw a small rise (1/8 inch), after which it fell some more.

However, with the rain over the last few days (a total of 2.44 inches recorded at Lanier), the lake has risen by 5.28 inches in the last three days.  Over half of that gain was yesterday, when the lake rose by 2.76 inches.

The other good news from this is that any rain we receive will continue to help us for a few days, because less water will need to be released from the lake as a result.  We covered that effect more in-depth a few months ago.  With no rain today, the lake is still up by about an inch (though the daily release is scheduled for later this evening).

The drought obviously isn’t over (the lake is still 20 feet low), but how good is this news?  Is it exciting that the lake has risen this much in the past few days?  Or is it just a blip on the radar and we’re still in deep, deep trouble?  Leave your thoughts in the comments.

With a rise of 1.08 inches (1050.79′ AMSL up to 1050.88′ = 0.09 ft = 1.08 inches), yesterday was Lanier’s largest rise since it climbed the same amount (from 1068.14′ to 1068.23′) back on March 16 and 17 of this year.

Today may prove to be even better.  The daily release at Buford Dam has yet to occur, which will knock the level down a bit, but we’re already up 0.12 ft (1.44″) for the day.  It’ll be interesting to see how the day end up.

We’re obviously a long way from this being over, but it’s certainly been an encouraging couple of days.

The driest year on record for the city of Atlanta was in 1931, with a total of 29.14 inches.  With the recent rain, Atlanta is now at a total of 29.27 inches for the year.

Even better, the short-term forecast is looking pretty good, with north Georgia possibly getting 3-4 inches of rain in the next five days.  That certainly won’t solve our problems, but every little bit helps.

The Lawrenceville Weather Blog has the full details.

CNN (via the Associated Press) has a story about all of the junk being exposed as Lake Lanier gets lower.  Items found include small things like guns and coolers, and much bigger things like cars and boats.

I’ve seen other stories like this recently so it’s not exactly breaking news, but it’s an interesting read nonetheless.

So far, all signs point to “yes”.  This article on watercrunch sums it up pretty well.

The primary factor seems to be La Niña, the current weather pattern that is likely to bring us warm, dry weather throughout the winter and into the spring, which we’ve discussed before.

The key seems to be in the next 3-4 months.  If we don’t get much rain during that span, things will almost certainly be worse heading into next summer/fall.

ST Frequency, an AWS reader and a writer for Reality Sandwich has written up a very nice article about the community that has formed around this site.

The article talks about the drought in general, the media response, then gets into quite a bit of detail about the site.  It’s a very nice summary of both the drought and the site.  Read it!

Back in October, the Army Corps of Engineers said that it would work on rewriting the manuals that guide how water is shared throughout the ACT (Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa) river basin.  Given the current situation, that seems like a very good idea.

However, Senator Shelby is doing his best to prevent that.  To quote from the article on 11Alive:

Georgia lawmakers are blasting Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama for slipping language into a massive end-of-year spending bill, blocking the federal government from updating the manuals that guide water-sharing in the region.

I realize that he wants to keep more water in his state, but this is a bit overboard.  Given that the governors are at least trying to work together, this seems really short-sighted.  To quote Senator Saxby Chambliss, it’s “mind boggling”.

Along with the now-famous Chris George Carlos, Cobb County has named 10 more major water users.  While most of these people still use an awful lot of water, they’ve all cut their usage in the last month or so.

The list:

•  Clearwater Development Group (Charles P. Beall)
  • Chimney Heights
• Theodore Brand
  • Timber Ridge Road
• John Stephenson
  • Paper Mill Road
• Charles Carpenter
  • Bullard Road
• Karen O’Riordan
  • Atlanta Country Club Drive
• Melanie Willcutts
  • Little Willeo Road
• Scott Weiss
  • Green River Court
• Scott Smith
  • Paper Mill Road
• Edward Himot
  • Paper Mill Road
• Evan Demestihas
  • Knight Road
• Chris G. Carlos
  • Thunderbird Drive

I’d like to plot these addresses in Google Earth (mostly for the sake of curiosity) in a similar manner to the map on the page, but none have the full address listed.  I looked up a few of them, but came up empty.

If you can find any of the addresses, leave them in the comments and we’ll see if we can put together a nice map.

(via Fresh Loaf) An editorial in Sunday’s Macon Telegraph gives a great summary of the problems facing the new water plan.

From the article:

The Ledger Enquirer said, “organizing the allocation of increasingly scarce water resources along lines that never had anything to do with water makes about as much sense as picking the musicians in an orchestra on the basis of height. The fact that this approach to water management was injected into a two-year-old discussion less than a week before the last round of public forums has a fine-print, “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” feel to it, especially for downstreamers.”

As an added bonus, we get a brief mention in the fourth paragraph. Nice!

Check it out.