Decision on flow reductions due tomorrow, and we have 79 days left
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.
November 16th, 2007 at 7:49 am
Alabama and Florida have no intentions of reducing their share of the water.
The question is how is this limited supply going to be allocated?
Will this also set a president for other states? That’s it’s ok for large cities to consume all of the water at the expense of the entire echo system and other cities down stream?
Atlanta should get serious about living within it’s limits.
November 16th, 2007 at 8:03 am
For Atlanta it will be business as usual. Here is a response from Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue.
“I’m sure all the for sale signs on Lake Lanier will be gone!”
Just move the problem down stream?
November 16th, 2007 at 8:17 am
No deal was reached with Florida. That’s just more deception from Atlanta sprawl.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:18 am
John -
The quote you mention is from earlier in November, when all three states had agreed to a reduction in water flow. And most people realized it was a silly thing to say back then. It is not a current quote.
And a deal was reached with Florida; Governor Crist of Florida later backed out of it and notified both the ACE and the Fish and Wildlife commission about Florida’s new stance. They’ve considered sueing if the reduction is enacted. Which would in all liklihood delay the reduction. But it isn’t “more deception for Atlanta sprawl”.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:28 am
rkoler,
If you have a point why don’t you make it without trying to discredit every post I make?
November 16th, 2007 at 9:44 am
I try to discredit any post I find that provides innaccurate data. If I’m discrediting more of your posts than others, the fault is yours, not mine.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue was just being silly? Wow, early November was a long time ago? Are you just being silly?
The problem is the reckless urban sprawl.
Amending the Endangered Species Act will have an impact on the entire nation.
Atlanta has known about this for a long long time, yet have done nothing to address the issue except try and discredit everyone else and take their water.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Looking at the numbers, the quote of 79 days clearly means the time to reach dead pool at the current rate of drop (lately it has been dropping a tad over .2 feet a day, with 18 feet to go, so in 79 days it will be around 1035). As far as total water goes, there is still around 220 days left: it’s currently holding 1340 acre-feet and has been dropping around 6 acre feet (about 1.5 billion gallons) per day.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:57 am
rkolter, Gov. Crist claimed he made no agreement. He said he didn’t even read the proposal until they got home. And when they did they disagreed with it.
Atlanta has been out of control and irresponsible for a long time. They have known about this for a long long time but have done nothing to address the fundamental issues.
That’s why you are wrong and you have provided no credible facts.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Gov. Perdue made a comment most people regarded as silly - a 16% reduction in the outflow will still have Lanier dropping dramatically, and many of the for sale signs that went up, went up because the homes are no longer beachfront property. It was a silly thing for him to say.
It was not, as you indicated, a current response. You quoted him out of context. He doesn’t need your assistance to play the part of a fool - he does it pretty well himself.
The problem IS reckless urban sprawl. Amending the Endangered Species Act WILL have an impact on the entire nation. Atlanta HAS known about this for a long time and done nothing to address the issue.
You didn’t say any of that though - you said that no deal was reached with Florida and that the idea a deal had been reached was deception on the part of Atlanta. That is incorrect information.
Say what you mean - if you’d just said “Dammit the problem here is reckless urban sprawl, and changing the endangered species act for these mussels is a serious issue that could cause problems elsewhere in the nation. Atlanta has known about it for a long time and now is floundering and trying to discredit everyone else!” You would be telling the truth, and I’d have nothing to disagree with you on.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:04 am
The ACE enacted a higher outflow from Buford Dam starting in November with the intent of increasing the average flow to 1.7 billion gallons a day for November. That correlates to when we saw the .2 foot or more a day drop start.
79 (78 now) days implies they expect the average drop to rise to .24 foot/day and stay there for the remainder of the time. That would imply either that they intend to keep the flow that high, or that they expect that the surface area will drop dramatically on the way to 1035 feet.
That’s a hell of a thing. I wonder which it will be, and hope they’re wrong.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:25 am
#
Say what you mean - if you’d just said “Dammit the problem here is reckless urban sprawl, and changing the endangered species act for these mussels is a serious issue that could cause problems elsewhere in the nation. Atlanta has known about it for a long time and now is floundering and trying to discredit everyone else!” You would be telling the truth, and I’d have nothing to disagree with you on.
# rkolter
That’s what I said. Man are you sure nothing else is in that lake water?
November 16th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Yeah, but you said it later… AFTER I complai- Aw hell. Screw it.
I’m actually up in Missouri. Our water is fine.
November 16th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Instead of prayer and trying to take water from other states and cities why not get serious about water restrictions. Stop ALL lawn watering. It’s almost winter and it’s starting to get cold. The grass is about to die anyways so just let it go, it will come back in the spring. How about cutting off water to residents and businesses who use far more then all the other residents in the area. If they abuse their water they should be cut off. If they can afford to waste their water like that then I’m sure they can afford to dig a well. They would have plenty of water to last till the shortage is over.
November 16th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Well, I’m down south and the water wars are just starting.
Urban sprawl is also out of control everywhere down here. All the tax money goes to new roads for new development. Grid lock traffic, not enough schools, etc.
Everyone down here says, “we don’t want to be the next Atlanta.”
Cities need to manage their growth, yet urban sprawl remains out of control.
Now, back to topic!
November 16th, 2007 at 11:11 am
I’m in Augusta and we just want Atlanta to stay out of our water supply. Our water levels are going down as well and don’t need a city who isn’t even serious about water restrictions taking our water so Mr. Carlos and people like him can have a green lawn.
November 16th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I live in Atlanta and I find it unreal that the car washes are still open. They’ve been open all summer, they haven’t been touched while the rest of us are trying to water our flowers and vegetables using gray-water. Praying for rain is not a viable drought contingency plan, and I don’t consider reducing the flow from Lake Lanier to be a good one either since there is likely to be such a huge environmental cost. I’d much prefer it if that person who calls himself the governor of GA would announce he was digging some municipal water wells. 220 days of water should be enough time to get them up and running.
November 16th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
John - The problem isn’t Atlanta use. If Atlanta magically stopped drawing any water at all the lake would still be dwindling to the bottom. The problem is outflow has exceeded inflow by a huge margin for quite some time. Lake Lanier is not a magical hole in the ground. Over time outflow and inflow have to balance. Alabama and Florida are demanding this outflow apparently without any concern as to the inflow. Maybe they should be demanding rain. Lake Lanier can smooth out small deficits but it can’t keep everyone downstream from feeling some of the pain in an extended drought. Believe me - we are feeling plenty of the pain up here.
November 16th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Breaking news…
Federal biologists signed off on a plan Friday to reduce the flow of water from Lake Lanier, the main water source for Atlanta and the focal point of a three-state water fight as the Southeast contends with a historic drought.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided that federally protected mussels can live with less water from Lanier, which could allow drought-sticken Georgia to keep more water in the drying lake.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iYOMIAzXREFVjcYtNagkheasCXwAD8SUTJ801
November 16th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Dang it, you caught it first!
… good catch.
I sadly suspect that Florida or Alabama will sue. Within the day. In the meantime we can watch the flows for signs of a decrease.
Note that the weekend flow last weekend was remarkably small - so this weekend may not be representative of what happens Monday.
November 16th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
it’s awfully lame of us to blame florida and alabama for this. it truly is georgia’s fault. the state govt has known they had major water shortages for a very long time, more than a few decades, in fact. they have done almost nothing to fix these problems long term. ironically perdue will get stuck for the bulk of the blame as well as the current house and state senate members. while i think he and the house and senate deserve allot blame, for their lack of response….we should be balming ourselves as well. we elect these idiots, so we really are to blame just as much as they are. after all relying on a federal lake like lanier for water for an entire major city is just plain stupid.
wells will not help. as now georgia pulls far more than their fair share through wells out of the floridian aquifer…in this case it’s not the residents of s. georgia who pull too much it is big industries that the govt will not force to switch to river waters. instead they pull so much out daily…many 100’s of millions of gallons a day of fresh drinkable water……that saltwater intrusion has already began in the coastal areas of both georgia and s. carolina which all rely on the floridian aquifer. in the end, there truly is no more water left. all wells would do is switch from one problem area to another and they all lead to the same problem which is no water.
i’ve stated it many time before and i’ll do it again…georgia needs more reservoirs built. less growth and development for water strapped areas. leaking infrastructure in atlanta fixed asap. never ending water restrictions for long term like many water districts in florida have adopted long ago. higher water rates to offset waste by those who just don’t care in a scale system over a certain amount in a month. higher taxes to help pay and implement all of these things. a halt to coastal development completely..before any more saltwater gets in and destroys three states drinking water supplies. an end to industrial and commerical use of well water. an end to septic tank systems and instead the building of city sewage infrastructure to use waste water for irrigation for all commerical and residential areas in the whole state. a push for native plants being used in landscaping to cut back on irrigation needs.
there are so many other things needed, but you already know the state govt, lead by perdue have done none of this. this stuff cannot be ignored anymore. when a state grows they have to do these things. otherwise we end up where we are right now. forget about lanier if all we have to hope for is lanier and rain we are screwed. it’s time to start fixing these problems for the long term.
November 16th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Looks like they are going to cut back the outflow by 10% instead of 16% as hoped for. Does the government have any logistics people on this? Where are the barges? Do they have to be built? Ordered? In my estimation, they should be in the water and tested at DP (dead pool) minus 30 days.
I think our only hope at this point is for Purdue to hire Blackwater USA to secure the dam and to hire Halliburton to engineer a solution!
November 16th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
RichS,
This decision has nothing to do with Atlanta’s problem of exceeding it’s water source.
Not my problem.
November 16th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Great post JHB! I also agree with Livvy!
Although, I’ll probably have to stop posting here, because I’m a troll magnet.
peace out!
November 16th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
JohnC -
Atlanta is not exceeding it’s water source. Unfortunately Atlanta doesn’t control it’s water source and it’s water is being flushed downstream. Atlanta has a fairly small watershed area, however it would do just fine with the watershed from the north Georgia area. This north Georgia watershed however is being expected to supply everyone downstream also. Please look at a map of Lanier. It’s water supply comes from North GA not from out of state. Why should Florida have more right to rain that falls in Georgia than we do???
November 16th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
JHB -
Georgia tried to build another reservoir twenty years ago. Alabama fought us and we dropped it. So yes they do deserve blame.
What are Alabama and Florida going to do when Lanier runs out of water? The answer……
It won’t be that big of a deal to them. Whether they have to take less water now or later - it will be an inconvenience. BooHoo.
It is already an inonvenience for Atlanta & north. Heading quickly to a crisis. I’m hearing about fishermen in Florida and a power plant in Alabama. I think those are pretty small concerns compared to drinking water for a few million people.
Atlanta can’t conserve it’s way out of this. The few million gallons that could be saved through conservation are a drop in the bucket compared to the billions of gallons that are being flushed into the ocean in order to keep some mussels wet and some fishermen in a job.
November 16th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
This problem is much larger in scope than mere urban sprawl. It points to an obvious truth that the world is overpopulated so much so that we are and have for several centuries now changed the course of the planet’s climate perhaps irreversibly. Climatologists have been saying for years that the inevitable consequences of warming are less predictable rainfall, drought, mega-wildfires, and more violent weather patterns. All of this has come to pass and is the shape of things to come.
We should be coming into the next iteration of an ice age which cycles every 100K years due to gravitational forces which causes Earth’s orbit to elongate; however, we are all participants in the strongest warming phase in the past million years. If human beings are at the root cause of this through GGE emissions, then by my estimation, the Earth may only be able to support up to 100M of us worldwide at our current median standard-of-living indefinitely.
A plan for the future is incomplete if it does not involve some mention of population control. While I have the utmost respect for our scientists, even they have grossly underestimated the pace of warming. With the world’s pop. at 6.6B and growing, so echoes the voice of Malthus.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Getting a little off track here?…So Gramps, your answer is to stamp out people and not the mussels? Are you one of those new world order types? The earth is over 80% water, I think we can figure this out without genocide…E gads, we have gone from the Dead Pool to a Dead Planet. Don’t believe the global warming propaganda, its just a method to take more of our liberties away from us - period. Let’s just figure out the water problem - ok? The earth has been here for billions of years through mass extinction, metors, ice ages, I am betting on the planet and its no time to get loopy.
November 16th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Right on track and very lucid thank you much. Contrary to your moniker, there is nothing that Sonny can do practically to address this problem in the short term. Put simply, the rains must come or else Georgia is fokked. Okay?
But let’s assume for stupidity’s sake that global warming is a farce. Build your reservoirs and your expensive desalination plants. In two decades Altanta will be wall-to-wall with 5.5M more neurotic people, and you will be faced with the same, insolvable crisis. You could put a cap on growth and send people away, but where would they go? There are vast areas of our country experiencing drought conditions as severe as GA.
And I wasn’t proposing that we line folks up against a wall and mow them down, nor was I alluding to any kind of government-sponsored measures. The greatest contribution that one can make to combat global warming is to have fewer children, but on a voluntary basis.
November 19th, 2007 at 1:44 am
For an “on-track” and painfully relevant look at the way climate change, electricity production, and water supply are bound together in Georgia, please read this PDF from the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy:
cleanenergy.org/resources/reports/GAClimateWaterPaper.pdf
One of its authors, Sara Barczak, is quoted in the AJC’s enlightening article from this Sunday (Nov 18th) about energy production and our water shortage. This is a must-read and should dramatically change the dialogue we’ve been having regarding water conservation. Find it here:
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/stories/2007/11/17/power_1118.html
November 19th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Thanks for the read. This did not occur to me at all. Also did not realize how much coal GA is burning these days, i.e. 5th in the world. Very enlightening and disturbing.
November 20th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
rich..lanier is a federal lake not georgia’s only. while part of the water may start in georgia…if undamed, it will flow s. to alabama and florida. let’s not get too into finger pointing was my only real point. it’s our problem and pointing fingers at other states for our lack of proper leadership for the last 30 + years is just lame and is making georgia appear to be a complainer state with no solutions only blame to be pointed. is that what we want to have other states think about us. that we are a bunch of whiners and can’t fix our own problems? this is not the georgia i know. atlanta yes, but not the state. finger pointing is what got us here in the first place 17 years ago and even further back than that.
even if the army corps shut the flow completely..then what? we wait until rain…if that doesn’t happen…atlanta runs out of drinking water. either way the city and northern part of the state is screwed..which leads me back to my original post which is…start implementing new infrastructure like desalinization plants and various other ideas for a long term sustainable plan to fix the problems long term. in the meantime, cut the flow back and conserve like hell. there really is no other options, is there?
November 21st, 2007 at 11:06 pm
[...] is that they don’t explain where that number comes from — wasn’t it just “79 days left” about a week [...]
December 15th, 2007 at 12:07 am
Move to Minnesota we have lots of water!!