The recent rain offers no direct help to Lake Lanier
As with every bit of rain we’ve seen over the last few months, the rain we got on Wednesday night and Thursday morning had no direct benefit for Lanier.
Lake Lanier (measured in Buford) got a total of 0.43 inches of rain. However, during Wednesday and Thursday the lake dropped by another 3.24 inches.
We’ve explained before that rain on one day can be of some benefit for a few days down the road. However, I don’t expect that .43 inches will help much at all.
Accuweather’s forecast still shows some rain possibly coming our way Saturday night, Sunday and Sunday night, with an expected total of around 0.79 inches, with another storm maybe arriving around the first of December.
November 23rd, 2007 at 11:08 am
Heck .43 is way more than Stone Mountain, near Atlanta, received from the weak storm front. I recorded less than .10 here. That kind of rain produces minor runoff, so very little benefit to Lake Lanier. There was about one inch of rain up in the Georgia mountains, above Lanier, so those streams will feed some water into the lake. But at the rate of approx. 3 billion gallons released daily from Buford Dam it will not make a difference. Dead pool level is about 90 to 120 days from now.
November 23rd, 2007 at 11:24 am
Since the Christmas season has arrived the Governor, Senators, and Representatives of Georgia seem to prefer that we all go shopping and forget about this drought for now. Thus no real reduction in water outflow from Lake Lanier. Water discharge allows all the power plants downstream, to Florida, to operate at full capacity to light all the trees for the holiday season. After March of next year electrical blackouts will start due to Lake Lanier no longer able to discharge 3 billion gallons of water daily.
November 23rd, 2007 at 11:30 am
NOTE: Recent article I read claims daily water release has dropped from 3.2 billion to 3.1 billion, thus 5% reduction. Some articles claim that only 1 billion gallons of water released daily from Lanier. Does anybody have a confirmed amount of daily discharge from the lake?
November 23rd, 2007 at 2:48 pm
I have been researching the daily water release from Lake Lanier and it has been around 2+ billion gallons a day. AJC newspaper on 11-16-07 said on 11-15-07 the Buford Dam released 2.6 billion gallons the highest single day release since May 2006. The article claims that US Army Corp. of Engineers plans to cut back daily release to just under 2 billion gallons next month.
Woodruff Dam on the Chattahoochee River, just above Florida, has been releasing 3.2 billion gallons a day and just cut back to 3.1 billion gallons.
The water released at that dam is to keep a nuclear power plant in operation, so the mussel thing is a cover for the power plants needing water to cool generators and nuclear rods.
November 23rd, 2007 at 4:07 pm
“Water for wildlife: The mussels debate” from dgilbert@gainesvilletimes.com.
Article claims 5,000 cfs of water flow from Woodruff Dam is needed to power an old coal-fired power plant, Herbert Scholz Generating Plant near dam, that produces only 85 megawatts of electricity daily. Joseph Farley Nuclear Plant, near Dothan, Alabama can get by on 2,000 cfs flow daily and it produces 6,000 to 7,000 megawatts daily.
Scholz plant must be taken offline and shut-down, but Gov. Crist is trying to prevent it. He does NOT give a crap about mussels, but he would sacrifice Atlanta’s population to protect an old power plant and FL fishing industry.
link to article:http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/article/847/
November 24th, 2007 at 12:04 am
In further investigation of power generating plants located near Woodruff Dam in Alabama and Florida. Southern Company headquartered in Atlanta owns both the Nuclear and Coal-fired facilities.
Of interest is another plant owned by them near Pensacola, Florida, called James F. Crist Generating Plant. Does Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida have financial family background in Gulf Power, part of Southern Company, that owns Herbert Scholz Generating plant that needs lots of water for cooling generators from Woodruff Dam?
November 25th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
All I have to say, is any rain is better than no rain. So don’t say that .43 rain won’t help because it’s .43 inches more than we had that we’ve used. Yes it would be nice for more, but be thankful that we got something and hope and pray we get more.
November 27th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
[...] was the case during the last bit of rain we got, Lake Lanier dropped even further yesterday in spite of the rain. In fact, since this blog started [...]
November 29th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
[...] As was the case during the last bit of rain we got, Lake Lanier dropped even further yesterday in spite of the rain. In fact, since this blog started [...]