Feds allow plan to reduce water flow from Lanier
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?
November 16th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
The 79 day number comes from this calculation:
18 feet left to the deadpool, divided by (give or take) 0.24 feet per day. That seems rational given that the flow will increase as the drought drags on and as the surface area declines (as you suggested).
But there is no mathematics I know of that stretches 79 days (78 as of today) to 365 days. It’s linear - if you drop the outflow by half, you double the number of days. To turn 79 days to 365 days, you would have to cut out 80% of the flow from Lake Lanier.
I think we wait and see what ends up happening. Still, any flow reduction is good news. Assuming Florida doesn’t sue to stop it. Which, I really am sorry to say, I believe they will.
November 16th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
I realize that Lanier supplies a big area but consideration needs to be given to people who live downstream of Atlanta. West Point Lake, located in Troup County, GA, serves people in Georgia and Alabama and the lake is barely two feet above deadpool. From all the reports it appears that there is nothing between the Atlanta metroplex and the mussels and oysters in the gulf. There are other people involved besides Atlantians.
November 16th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Of course Florida will stop it, they also have too rapid growth, but at least Tampa has a desalinization plant, why should they have to suffer for years of mismanagment, poor planning, and sprawl???? Is this GW’s “trickle down” theory…that the Chattahoochee is now down to a trickle???
Environmentalists who happen to be scientists who GW doesn’t believe have told Atlanta for years not to depend on the hurricane season to support their sprawl….
A Republican governor just prays instead of actually providing real solutions….and people fall for this???? I guess Republicans will spin trucking in water as real man’s work and good for you, like they spun the drought in Lake Okachobee in FL as now that there is no water we can finally clean the bottom!!! This government’s stupidity and audacity is unbelievable….
They frame the situation is pitting mussels vs. humans, forgetting that Atlanta’s incessant sprawl is the main culprit, not the mussels simply trying to exist!!!!!
“Sonny” Perdue apparently is an old-school preacher and believes in man’s dominion over nature, instead of living with nature….unfortunately, when these Bible thumping morons become environmental refugees, they will come to climates that haven’t yet been affected and try to destroy them also…can we put up a fence????
Imagine if either AL or FL had a Dem. Gov, GW would have cut flow immediately, the only thing he hates worse than conservative white religious “patriotic” Southern folk and oil is the environment…
November 16th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
I acknowledge the legitimate needs downstream, like power plants, drinking water, etc. However, the fact that _Fish & Wildlife_ made the call regarding flow, it’s pretty clear to me that this is about the mussels and sturgeon and not other legitimate purposes.
November 16th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Well, Fish and Wildlife were the ones with the authority to override the legal bind ACE was in. ACE has a free hand in water management, so long as they abide by a laundry list of rules.
It’s akin to being “free” to drive your car - on roads, at the speed limit, obeying all signs, watching out for other traffic, using your signals, while the rest of the car is full of backseat drivers with sharp pointy sticks.
November 16th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
So, what happens when the water level hits dead pool (DP) ? I understand that Atlanta’s water intake pipes are some distance below the dam, not drawing directly from the water. So, at DP, the only water that goes over the dam is the amount that enters the “lake” from upstream.
Is that enough? The river will obviously shrink greatly, but it won’t disappear completely. If the city intakes are still below water, will everything continue working okay?
Alternatively, barges, pumps, and hoses start pushing water out of the DP over the dam. River stays full, city has water, all is well for as long as that water lasts.
How far below the dam are the intakes? How high does the river need to run for the water system to work properly? Can water be piped or pumped directly from DP to the city water works if the river will be too low? This would seem to stretch the resource to the greatest degree possible.
It would seem to me that upon hitting DP, the downstream users are just out of luck.
So many questions. Perhaps there are some answers out there.
I’m sitting in my office, looking out the window at the Mighty Mississippi, running pretty high right now (or it was an hour ago, before it got dark) as we’ve had a fairly moist fall up here. Less than one mile below where the Ol’ Man runs by my office is a major construction site; where a new I-35 bridge is being constructed as quickly as possible to try and recover from another major, deadly, and entirely preventable disaster.
Good luck to all of you, and I wish I could send you some of our surplus.
Best regards,
Scott
November 16th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Sorry for the typo in the first paragraph. S/B not drawing directly from the water in Lake Lanier. Obviously, the pipes are drawing directly from the water. Oops.
November 16th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Scott,
Despite the drama, this is not an isolated situation in the South East.
The Supreme Court has ruled many times that when a river crosses over into adjacent states that it is a national waterway and shall be shared by each state.
So as the supply shrinks Georgia, Alabama and Florida will share whatever is released.
Cities up stream even fight cities downstream from taking too much water because that means the upstream city will have to limit their intake even more during times of drought.
There is an infinite demand for a finite limit.
November 17th, 2007 at 2:01 am
I’ve been following your blog for some time now from Seattle. I truly wish I could send you some of our rain. Last winter we had salmon swimming across roads in the floods. By spring we’d all grown gills. This year’s forecasted to be just as wet.
If we could send our clouds your way we surely would.
Hang in there.
November 17th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Are you also factoring in the water taken directly from the lake by Atlanta suburbs and Cobb County?
November 17th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I believe that’s being factored in as simply being consistent, which is probably as accurate as it can be for right now.
November 17th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
We could probably work it out - there was that map of withdrawl points on the lake a few days ago. I was suprised how few there were.
November 18th, 2007 at 10:28 am
There are thirteen withdraw points above the dam. That’s more than a few.
Georgia needs to get serious about developing a responsible water supply instead of more misinformation.
November 18th, 2007 at 10:40 am
In advance, I’m NOT PICKING ON YOU JOHNC.
Are you looking at this map:
http://www.ajc.com//metro/content/metro/stories/2007/10/26/watermap.html
It shows 7 or possibly 8 withdrawl points above the dam (#8 being the City of Buford, and thus I am assuming, where Buford Dam is - I don’t live there though; am I wrong?)
November 18th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Is a 500 cfs savings enough to bring you to a year?
Not by this estimate:
Lake Lanier area: 153.8 km^2 (assume a vertical shoreline)
500 cfs = 3740 gal/sec = 323 million gallons/day
= 1.22 billion liters/day
= 1.22 million cubic meters/day
= 1.22 cm/day reduction in depth (assuming vertical shorelines)
= 0.043 feet/day savings
So now you’re going down, using rkolter’s data, only 0.196 feet/day (roughly) instead of 0.24 feet/day. Divide 18 feet to the deadpool by 0.20 and you get 91 days left until deadpool. The primary source of error here is that I am using a surface area measurement from when the lake was full, and now you are much deeper. A better estimate would be to find how many feet per day the lake dropped before given the net water expenditure (0.24 ft/day?), then multiply it by ([old net outflow/day (all sources) ]- 500 cfs) / [old net outflow/day (all sources) ]. This formula shows, by the way, that it is incorrect to assume that a 50% reduction in outflow through the dam increases your water supply by a factor of two: You need to consider the net outflow by all sources, thirsty humans included.
Best Regards,
~Ben
November 18th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
rkolter,
yes, there are seven and not thirteen.
either way they get a lot rain this winter or run dry.
which brings me back to my statement,
Georgia needs to establish the limits of the water sources and not exceed them.
This reckless policy threatens the entire region, not just one mussel.
November 18th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
The real problem is that the “needs” of Florida (mussels, fisheries, etc) are the only factor taken into account when determining Lanier outflow. I think it’s obvious that the formula for determining output from lanier needs to take into account both inflow and lake level. It’s sort of like setting a household budget without considering how much income you have nor how low your savings account has dwindled.
It’s very easy to point the finger at Atlanta as a big water user. The truth is though that the water being used by Atlanta or anyone else is only a small fraction of the water being flushed into the ocean in the name of maintaining a the flow rate mandated by EPD and Florida.
November 18th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
No, City of Buford has a 2 MGD plant several miles north of Buford Damn, and slightly to the east. They have a pickup in Big Creek. Big Creek has gotten fairly low, and I don’t know what the minimum usable lake level is for it.
Since CoB is part of Gwinnett County, I imagine in the event of the Big Creek plant going dry, the Gwinnett County pickup (#9) will cross-feed processed water into CoB’s system. I don’t know this for a fact, but I imagine it’s a contingency plan since the GC plant is far more recent, and would be a fallback in the event of anything happening to the CoB plant.
November 18th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Although it wouldn’t be popular with Florida or Alabama, one fair way to do it would be to determine what the flow at the mouth of the river would be in Florida, were the dam not in place during this drought, and then lower the overflow from the dam(s) to reduce the outflow to that level.
November 18th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Florida and Alabama own part of the water in the lake.
The dam wasn’t created for sole benefit of Atlanta sprawl.
They shouldn’t depend on the federal government and other states to provide their water storage.
November 18th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
I don’t think some of realize the impact cutting off the water downstream would have on other states.
There will be no water for existing cities, power plants, factories, wildlife, etc.
They will also have zero growth in economy as no factory or business would consider a place with no access to water.
It would be a death sentence to the other states, which is why the laws are the way they are.
Atlanta is a joke. They have the smallest water supply of any major city.
My city had to develop it’s own water supply without any help from the state or federal government. We also don’t want the federal government up stream to build a dam and cut us off because to the reckless sprawl in some of these cities.
These issues are playing out in federal court all over the region.
November 18th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
JohnC -
No one wants to “cut off” water to downstream but neither should the North Georgia area be forced to supply unlimited amounts of water downstream that would not occur naturally. North Georgia (Atlanta and above) has a very adequate water supply. So much so that two rivers begin in this area. Rkolter is right - there would be a certain amount of flow if there was no dam, no lake, and even no city of Atlanta. We can’t continue to support more water flow than that indefinitely.
Let me say that I do not live in Atlanta - I live north on the bank of lake Lanier. So my interest isn’t in Atlanta (other than believing drinking water has to be the top priority when rationing the resource) - my personal selfish interest is to see everyone who drains water from Lanier to cut back and save the lake I love. That being said, I see Atlanta and all of north Georgia making an effort to reduce their water use. Alabama has also started to work with us by accepting reduced flow, but Florida seems unwilling to make any concession. I don’t see Atlanta as the villian here.
November 18th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
richs,
What you are missing is that it’s not just Georgia’s water. You didn’t build the dam.
The minimum flow rate takes all of those factors into consideration. That’s why they had the reduction.
Atlanta and the others should have developed more storage capacity other than relying on Lanier.
I’m sorry you all painted yourselves into a corner. Even if you cut all outflow you are still at great risk of draining the lake because it can’t sustain the demand.
As I said Alabama and Florida also depend on the same water in Lanier just as much as Georgia.
By your policy, cities can outgrow their water source, then turn to other states share of the water. These other places would also have no driking water and the entire echo system would be lost.
The rest of Georgia doesn’t support this reckless policy either.
November 18th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Uh… sorry, I obviously forgot a number in my earlier post. That should be 7.9mm/day, or 0.31 inches savings per day, meaning that by that estimate the rate of decrease of depth should decrease by approximately that much per day.
~Ben
November 18th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
JohnC -
I have never said that Georgia owns lake Lanier. Georgia should have a very considerable say in it’s use though considering it is Georgia’s watershed that feeds Lanier.
Florida and to a lesser extent Alabama have been fighting against making any reductions in their share. When do you propose that they start trying to save the resourse that we all share?
Lanier is a finite resourse and I naturally side with those who are trying to conserve it.
November 19th, 2007 at 12:35 am
In his must-read book, “God’s Last Offer”, Worldwatch Institute director offers the following reasoning for the sharing of water resources across state lines:
“We think of water “belonging,” like land, to particular territories: Minnesota and Sweden have lots of lakes; Southern California and Mauritania have few. But that’s a fallacy, like saying your left leg “has” two pints of blood. If the blood didn’t circulate through the rest of your body, the leg would die–-and so might you. The water in Sweden has to circulate through the planet’s hydrological cycle just as surely, or large patches of the planet will die. It’s as risky for nations to own water in a way that severely disrupts its flow as it would be for a leg to prevent blood from returning to the heart.”
And in a more relevant passage:
“On the most visible level, the problem is simply that major rivers flow across state or national borders, and heavy withdrawals by the upstream jurisdiction can mean shortages downstream. If Ethiopia takes too much from the Nile, Egypt is deprived. If Las Vegas takes too much from the Colorado River, the Colorado Delta is deprived. And, in fact, it is deprived–it is now dry as desert.”
-ST
November 19th, 2007 at 12:36 am
I left out the author’s name: Ed Ayres.
Buy this book, and lend it!
November 19th, 2007 at 12:38 am
(this was posted by JohnC, but was lost in the server change)
The lake is low because there is a drought. All of the lakes are low in the entire region. They all play by the same rules.
As I said, Georgia’s, Alabama, and Florida each play a significant roll in establishing the minimum flow rate.
Quit thinking the federal government and other states should supply your municipal water.
You need to understand all of the factors involved. Atlanta is the only city with such a limited water supply. They have known this a long time.
November 19th, 2007 at 9:30 am
John - by your reasoning since the Atlanta area watershed has been federalized Atlanta needs to find it’s water elsewhere.
North Georgia is not receiving water from the federal government. The federal government is taking water from north Georgia. I think you are backward in your thinking about who is supplying water to whom.
November 19th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Rich, Georgia and Atlanta is receiving it’s lions share of water from Lanier.
It’s clear that any discussion with you is a waste of time.
November 19th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Has anyone provided hard numbers that show information such as:
(1) How much water do Atlanta and its suburbs actually remove from the river?
This should be expressed as amount withdrawn minus amount returned via water processing plants, etc.
I know that the Cobb County/Marietta Water Authority returns a significant amount of water (10-15 million gallons per day) directly back to Lake Allatoona, for example, after it has been used and processed/purified.
(2) What percentage of the water being released from Lake Lanier is actually stopped from doing downstream due to activities in Atlanta?
That would show the real impact that Atlanta is having. It’s quite possible that Atlanta and its suburbs are actually having a minimal impact on the reservoir compared to the total outflow.
November 19th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
JohnC -
You’re right - we are never going to agree so I’m done with you also. And you are also right that Georgia and Atlanta draw water from Lanier. That’s because most of the groundwater / rainwater in the north georgia area ends up in Lanier. The north Georgia area is a net donor of water - not a net recipient. We have no water that flows into this area from upstream other than some possible groundwater tables that are shared with Tennessee and North Carolina.
No rivers flow in - two rivers flow out but you think we are hogging water??????? I think you must have an agenda that is keeping you from being rational.
December 6th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
[...] to the Corps in which they complain about the reduced flow out of Lake Lanier. The flow was reduced by 5% last month, but Florida says that the lack of water from the river is increasing the salinity in the bay, [...]