Desalination plants and water imported from the Great Lakes could not be accomplished quickly and the cost, including pipeline transport, might be prohibitive. Wells tapping the aquifer might help. Someone should be paid to investigate. Lake Superior is down 5 feet (which is huge) and Michigan will fight a Great Lakes drain, like Texas would if we tried to take its oil.

For now, using the water we saved (in Lanier and Allatoona) from several years ago seems a lot more productive solution than throwing it away and trying to pump in a replacement from far away. Write your congressman and senators like I did. It will rain eventually. We just need to plan now for larger reservoirs and we immediately need the ability to stop imprudent releases.

For now, when the level falls “below the normal pool,” our water quality will suffer. I’ve bought filters and hope they will work.

There may not be solutions to the Lanier problem but there are alternative solutions to the PROBLEM. The problem is not Lake Lanier, the problem is a reliable water source. Possible solutions: Wells; Pipeline from Great Lakes; Desalinization, etc. The Lake is gone and may never recover if releases continue. So, solutions are needed for the problem and not Lanier. And, prayer vigils are not going to re-fill the lake. We only have a couple months to get meaningful actions in place and those with the resources and power and budgets are praying and not planning!!!!!!!! People need to stop focusing on rain and Lake Lanier - the world is 80% water, it’s time to get creative. Water is not the issue, creativity is what’s lacking.

For now, though, there is no other water source. It’s Lanier or bust.

The State said on 11/1 that we had an 80-day supply. So on 11/16, we would have a 65-day supply. A 16% reduction then would mean usage at 84% of whatever the rate has been. So just divide the # of days supply by 1 minus the reduced percent (or the increased percent if applicable, since today’s AJC said it’s increasing from 1.2B to 1.7B gallons a day–a 42% increase).

D = days left as of 11/16/07
D = 65/(1.00-0.16) = 65/0.84 = 77 days (11 weeks–1/31/08)
D = 65/1.00+.042) = 65/1.42 = 46 days (Happy New Year)

If we believe the Corps of Engineers instead, they said on 10/19 that we had 282 days minus 169 below the normal usable pool, for a total of 113 days. So on 11/16, 28 days later, there would be 85 days.

D = 85/.084 = 101 days (2/25/08)
D = 85/1.42 = 60 days (Mid-January)

It seems fairly certain we will have a water quality problem soon if we have to draw from deeper down, and the sediment may clog pipes. Can’t we just send Alabama and Florida electricity instead of water and let God decide if it’s time for the mussels to die out?

We’re a bit below that number of gallons, but not much.

3.2B gallons at the state line is much different than 3.2 gallons out of the dam. Other water sources feed into the river while it’s in Georgia, helping to raise that number. The billion or so gallons that is released daily from Lanier is a starting point, and it climbs to 3.2B by the time it hits the state line, after being fed from other smaller creeks and rivers.

I think.