The water situation is one that has been on the minds of some planners and policy geeks for quite some time. Otherwise, the area has made it through previous droughts without any real scare or crisis. Some watering restrictions and agriculture issues, but nothing like the current crisis.

You could lay all sorts of blame if the area saw a drought every few years and each one got a little worse than the last. In this case, the situation has gone critical in a span of four months. I have heard this called a 100 year drought, but actually I think it is worse than that. It is a 100 year drought compounded by draining the reservoir at an unsustainable rate. The two issues compounding each other makes the problem more like a 1000 year drought if we were only considering nature. I doubt many communities are practicing that kind of foresight.

I believe the Tennessee River option should be only for bringing Atlanta’s drinking water up to a safe level. To simply let them have water from other areas without attempting to solve their own problems is simply not right.

Dan - I doubt the pipelines running into Dalton have the capacity to carry anywhere near the water Atlanta needs. Hypothetically though, if Atlanta could get the water it needed from the Tenessee River without causing pain to any communities downstream why would Atlanta’s growth need to be stopped? The reason I ask is I see a lot of anger at Atlanta’s “unbridled growth”. I can understand that view from downstream stakeholders but I’m seeing a lot of people who are angry about Atlanta’s growth who don’t seem to have a dog in this fight. I’ve never really heard anger directed toward a city because of population growth before and don’t understand where it comes from.

Having said that, I would be opposed a wholesale transfer. The idea of giving some water to bring Atlanta’s water level to a safe level might be acceptable but unless there are strict guidelines, the taste of Tennessee river water would be like a drunk going back to the bottle. Trying to quench the unbridled growth in Atlanta is not possible.

As many have noted, there is a relatively small ratio of storage to flow in the ACF basin. There just isn’t enough capacity in the existing federal reservoirs to meet all needs. Another factor complicating this is that, as quoted above, the major urban area (Atlanta) lies at the river’s headwaters, where flows are generally lower. Now add to this the facts that Lanier holds the majority of storage capacity for the entire basin, that it is positioned at the headwaters of the system, and is only recharged by 5% of the total watershed.

All of these factors combined point to a generally insufficient and poorly distributed arrangement for surplus water to serve all downstream users. As Lanier is a federal reservoir (and at least for the moment, federally-operated) it is being managed for the benefit of all stakeholders — irregardless of its proximity to Atlanta. Perhaps it would have been wise for the ACE to have concurrently built another similarly-sized reservoir further to the south, to distribute the surplus across the region. I wonder if it’s too late for such a project to be possible…

-st

While I would prioritize farm needs above suburban lawn watering, I would put it far below public use for drinking / showering / sewage / firefighting, etc.

Way too many points for me to address, but no I am not talking about the Flint river. I am talking about all the creeks and tributaries that deposit into the river system below Atlanta. Only 5% of the total watershed area of the ACF basin is above Atlanta. If Atlanta were to claim a good bit of that 5% of the basin I don’t see that it would be such an extreme irresponsible act.

Sorry, I don’t have a reference handy for either fact - they are information I ran across and retained. If you find different figures I would be interested in digging deeper to reconcile the numbers. I will give you a reference for the watershed figure I referenced above though -
http://www.lakelanier.org/is_qn_lake_lanier_water_quantity.php