Comments on: DeKalb County might not require retrofitting after all

By: shelby

shelby — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:09:06 +0000

No one has pointed out that there are 34 million and climbing, illegal immigrants in this country!!!! This is just another way they are affecting our lives period!!! If they get rid of them we will have cleaner air, less garbage, lower rent payments and deposits!, less pollution, MORE JOBS, and more water!!!! If you don’t believe this do the math!!! More babies were born to families other than americans last year. Why should I give up my house, food and my job and water, to accommodate them. (Oh, because they worked so hard to get here) What are our kids going to do??? And, anyone that thinks this is racist, keep your remark to yourself, IT”S THE DAMN TRUTH!!!! And, it is enough to get P—st about!!!

By: biblybob

biblybob — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:30:07 +0000

I hope none of this will ever happen

By: Jay Randal

Jay Randal — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:02:52 +0000

RichS > all the downstream power plants have to agree to a lower flow rate on Chattahoochee/Apalachicola river system. At present the old coal-fired power plant Scholz, located below Woodruff Dam/Lake Seminole in Florida, requires a flow of 3.2 billion gallons daily to operate. Flow has been reduced to 3.1 billion gallons and plant manager claims that flow below 3 billion is not possible. Scholz plant must be shut-down ASAP and flow cut by 50% at all the dams including Lanier.

By: RichS

RichS — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:52:14 +0000

And I disagree with the government mandating retrofit to low flow toilets. If the government really wants to do something - raise the price of water to a point that it would be stupid not to buy low flow. While we are raising the price around Atlanta - how about charging the users downstream also? This problem can’t be solved by metro Atlanta using less water. Everyone has to contribute to the cause.

By: RichS

RichS — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:48:26 +0000

Hope to god you are right chicken little. Probably a better than even chance that you are. If you aren’t - then the sky IS falling and just a few people are paying attention.

By: Jay Randal

Jay Randal — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 17:05:52 +0000

Chicken > sky is falling infers some rain > lol. There are some people who will try to take advantage, and buy houses at rock bottom prices, but if the drought becomes permanent then they get shafted too.

By: Chicken Little

Chicken Little — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 12:15:28 +0000

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

Can’t wait to come back here in a few years and read how “Sponge’ wished he had picked up a few homes during this temporary downturn in prices.

BGAWKKKKK!

By: Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 08:54:39 +0000

Atlanta’s water situation will be the straw that broke the camel’s back, if it hasn’t broken already. I say it time to buy Euros guys; actually all countries hold a certain amount of USD so no currency is safe, but most are better than the dollar. There is no reason to believe that catastrophic system failure on a global scale is out of the question because modern 20th century infrastructure, particularly the suburban sprawl in which everyone must drive to get anywhere, is completely incompatible with 21st century resource limitations.

Water shortage is the 800 lb. gorilla that will bring the unsustainable nature of America’s infrastructure to light. In Europe, most major cities has cisterns on rooftops to collect rain. It’s amazing that this is non-existent there for any major metropolitan city in the US. Check out this article:

http://www.djc.com/news/ae/11151114.html

I see enough shills for the American mortgage industry and scared homeowners trolling message boards and blogs trying to keep the real estate market afloat with their desperate please to hold and even buy. Pathetic really. Some guys are telling me it is the ultimate buying opportunity, my take is that as long as America wages war on its middle class and high paying factory jobs continue to be shipped overseas, then there will be only greater housing surpluses. Coupled with natural disaster, I see a buy low, sell lower situation ahead for a lot of naive real estate investors.

America cannot sustain the coming catastrophe that Atlanta is going to face. Actually, I personally believe that the US has every intention to use catastrophe in order to further promote paranoia among the citizens and further establish their last resort of totalitarianism before the tracking device injected, retinal scanned, branded hoard of insecure superconsuming cattle will kill themselves with an untreatable case of supervirus. You can thank corporatism for that.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 07:14:51 +0000

Mickey, I don’t particularly disagree in the sense that it isn’t over once Lanier runs dry, but I do think the word “solutions” is a bit inaccurate, in that I think the days of being able to assume water will always be available without question in just about whatever quantity you want are over.

Reservoirs require net inflow into the system to exceed net outflow over a certain period of time, and I don’t know that there is much watershed left in the US that isn’t already being captured. Desalinization plants are a sort of nuclear option because they require enormous amounts of energy to run. They work (economically) to some extent for urban use, but if it comes to that for a locale, local agriculture will disappear, and industrial use won’t be far behind.

By: mickey

mickey — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 04:45:40 +0000

I agree that he’s making a big assumption, but he’s probably (possibly?) right. The odds are good that we’ll eventually get enough rain to at least get the water turned back on. Maybe a tropical storm next year, or maybe not until 2009. Who knows?

There are some reasonable long-term solutions (including desalinization, more reservoirs, etc), but just nothing short-term.

The whole problem of duration is something I don’t think most people realize. Most folks I talk to that are scared of the possibility of going dry don’t realize that if we run out it could be for months. It’s one thing to run out of water for week — it’s quite a different thing to be out for six months.