Some predictions about when the water might run out
We posed the question before — when will the water run out? The answer is usually another question: who knows? 
Fortunately, we’ve got some ambitious people that use this site. Ryan Kolter has spent a great deal of time building an informative page on our wiki to try to determine how long the water will last. The page shows just how crazy all of the various predictions are, but having them all in once place really helps. He updates the page daily with the latest information.
Specifically, his numbers show the various guesses on how long it will be until Lake Lanier reaches the deadpool. As of today, the estimates vary from 61 days (February 2, 2008) up to 182 days (June 2, 2008), but most of the estimates are in late April or early May.
So go check out the predictions page for a complete list of the estimates, along with details about where each number came from.
December 3rd, 2007 at 2:35 pm
It would help a lot if ACE would actually release the true daily outflow amount for Lake Lanier/Buford Dam? When they fudge or lie about actual release, then it throws a monkey wrench into the whole equation.
December 3rd, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I responded to you already on this - they do release the true daily outflow amount for Buford Dam.
http://water.sam.usace.army.mil/gage/acfhist.htm - from the ACE
http://www.tinymicros.com/cgi-bin/nph-lake.pl - Nicely organized.
December 4th, 2007 at 12:53 am
I see a lot of these estimates, but not too much discussion about what happens when we hit these dates and we are officially out of water. What happens next? What’s the plan for when we run out? Do we all just move away?
December 4th, 2007 at 12:56 am
rkolter > I do not trust anything ACE claims at the moment. They still have not explained the 22 billion gallons of extra water dumped out of Lanier last June. Some independent group is going to have to be a watchdog over ACE.
December 4th, 2007 at 1:00 am
brad > Some politicians in Georgia probably would not care if some of us moved away, but they are concerned about getting re-elected next year. Thus they will show some concern about water shortages, up to next November, then probably blow everybody off after election.
December 4th, 2007 at 6:38 am
Brad > There is a lot of discussion in our forums about what could happen if we run out.
http://www.atlantawatershortage.com/forums/
December 4th, 2007 at 7:01 am
Jay, just because you do not trust them does not mean that ACE is not reporting true numbers. I’m not seeing anything that would indicate that they are not reporting the true levels, and have no problem accepting the figures as they are released.
As for the 222 billion gallons, In June 2006 ACE revealed that the new lake gauge at the dam, replaced in December 2005, was not properly calibrated, yielding a lake level reading nearly two feet (over half a meter) higher than the actual level. Because of this, nearly twenty-two billion U.S gallons (over eighty-two billion liters) of excess water was released over and above the already planned excess releases.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:53 am
wspurlock > AJC newspaper claimed release of 22 billion extra gallons of water in June of this year, from Lake Lanier, not in 2006. Maybe that needs clarification, if occurred in 2006 and not this year. ACE releases their daily release amount after the fact, so they might be less than truthful at times.
If ACE was not so beholden to the power plant industry, then I would have more confidence in them. The current drought is far more serious than past ones in that more people live in Georgia, more industry and more power plants too. Evidence is plentiful that over-development in Georgia has exceeded available water resources. Thus to release 1.5 to 2.5 billion gallons of water from Lanier daily is irresponsible, especially if intake into the lake remains under half a billion gallons a day. There has to be a 50% reduction in water release from Lanier and all the other reservoirs. Otherwise eventually the lakes will dry up and no water for anybody.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:13 am
It would be nice to have a list of daily water use for every city, factory and power plant below Lanier all added up together versus daily watershed amount available. Until Georgians see that demand for water far exceeds availibility, then nothing can be done to curtail over-development.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Jay, the fact that you choose to not believe the ACE daily release values doesn’t indicate that they’re wrong.
Please stop bringing up the release of 22 billion gallons of water in 2006. You don’t know what you’re talking about. First, you didn’t know the actual date. We had to tell you. It was the weekend of the 17-18, June, 2006. Second, you didn’t know what happened and naturally assumed it was malicious. It was a recently installed bad gauge. The ACE didn’t make the gauge. They got it as a replacement. Third, you assume the press had to discover this issue - in fact, the ACE immediately held a press conference where they reported the mistake to the public. Nobody had to wheedle it out of them.
Nor is the ACE a corporate lackey to the power plant industry. It is a branch of the US Military and the only way any US Power company would have leverage with them is if they lobbied to change the laws.
The ACE is bound by law. It’s an attractive target for all the anger and frustration, I know - but it isn’t the bad guy. It is bound by very strict rules and regulations on how much water must be released through the river system Lanier is the major reserveroir in. When they can release less from Lanier, they do - as evidenced both by the recent smaller releases thanks to rain over Georgia, and their own direct involvement in pushing for a change in the regulation covering water that had to be released for the endangered Mussels. They wanted more restrictions than what they got.
They just aren’t the bad guys.
December 4th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
I just thought I’d point out here too that in the courts often municipalities get precedence for water claims (obviously in this case there is an exception due to the Endangered Species Act). Considering that ACE is usually the enforcer of these court decisions, I wouldn’t put too much stock in them playing favorites with power companies. They’re probably just trying to minimize the number of lawsuits they get.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Jay, your right, a list of daily water use for every city, factory and power plant all added up together versus daily watershed amount available would be a great resource. I’m not sure that we can gather all this information, but I’m willing to try. Using the map that the AJC has that identifies the 39 largest users I’ve started to put together a page in the Wiki to try and pull all this together. What I’d like to do is list each user, their location in miles north of the mouth of the river, how much they withdraw on a daily basis, and how much they return (if any). Also at the same time include the information on all the dams on the river. If we could get some average figures, we could put together a “snapshot” of an average day on the river. Not much at all there right now, just a rough start. I’ll try to work on this as time permits and if anyone else wants to jump in feel free.
http://atlantawatershortage.com/wiki/index.php/39_major_users
December 4th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
wspurlock > thanks for trying to pull those figures of daily water use together. That information will be valuable to determine how much water really remains for all us Georgians. Plus it will show how development is taxing the water resources beyond availability.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
rkolter > I do not consider ACE a sinister organization that secretly wants to screw us all over. I just do not trust them on being completely honest about daily releases of water from Buford Dam and from the other reservoirs.
As for the mention of 22 billion extra gallons of water it was AJC that said June of this year. If it was June of 2006 then I stand corrected. Was it malicious event? Nope, but I do believe it was negligence.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
rkolter > 22 billion gallons is a lot of extra water to release in 2 days and not be aware of it. Average daily release from Lanier is around plus or minus 2 billion, so over 10 times that amount in 2 days during that June. I rest my case.
December 5th, 2007 at 7:52 am
Ok, lets see if we can’t put an end to this. Due to a calibration error, the Corps released 650 cubic feet per second in excess water over a 52 day period, totaling about 22 billion gallons of excess water released from Lake Lanier.
December 5th, 2007 at 8:04 am
52 days? Well that explains why I was disturbed to not find a giant spike in the archive records.
December 5th, 2007 at 8:38 am
Oh, AJC’s countdown clock seems to be volume based and based on the conservation pool estimated volume in billions of gallons, corrected daily for the water lost, divided by the average loss for the last two weeks.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/12/03/droughtpage_1202.html?cxntlid=inform
December 5th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
wspurlock > excess water release over 52 days makes better sense, than 2 days in middle of June.
December 6th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Some early numbers that show just how much water metro Atlanta is using per day. All numbers are MDG (Million Gallons per Day) These numbers do not take into account factors such as minor tributaries feeding into the system, water returned to the system or other users that have permits to withdraw water on a daily basis.
Water Withdraw from Lake Lanier (Above Buford Dam):
City of Gainsville - 25
City of Cumming - 12
Forsyth County - 15
City of Buford - 2
Gwinnett County - 125
Total - 179 MGD
Buford Dam Outflow for yesterday - 842 Million Gallons
Major water withdrawals below Buford Dam:
Cobb County - Withdraw 73
City of Atlanta - 150
Atlanta-Fulton County Water Resources Commission - 75
DeKalb County - 117
Total : 415 MGD
Total Metro Atlanta Use : 594 MGD
December 6th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Mentioned it elsewhere, but good info!
As an aside, much of that water is returned - but it is returned to where it came from - so Lake Lanier for those who withdraw from the lake, and the river for those who withdraw downstream.
December 6th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
There are a few missing locations after all - I summarized in the Wiki on the sources of withdraw page:
http://atlantawatershortage.com/wiki/index.php/List_of_water_sources_for_metro_area_counties
December 6th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
It’s probably a small point rkolter but you say water is returned to where it came from. I know at least Gwinnett county draws from the lake and returns to the river. There are also some strange inter-basin transfers where water comes out of one system and sewage is returned to a different system. You can see an interesting diagram of that on page 3-5 here -
http://www.northgeorgiawater.com/files/WSWC_SECTION3.PDF
I’m not really making any “point” with this. Just that you are the numbers guru and it may make a difference in some of the assumptions you make when crunching numbers.
December 7th, 2007 at 8:13 am
No, you make a good point. In GENERAL the water is returned to the source it came from. That’s supposed to always be the plan.
The inter-basin transfers are interesting; I’ll have to add them to the table above.
December 7th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I added them to the table this morning.
December 7th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I also added another prediction to the predictions page based on an ACE statement on water availability on 12-6.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
I’m still a bit perplexed over the water relation to power. In this blog we hear at 1035 ft the bigger turbines stop on Lanier. My question is: What percentage of the Greater ATL Metro does this loss represent? I am on the Allatoona water system. I found a ACE pdf concerning allatoona power generation. First, here’s how you find it. Google Drought Summit June 2007. The 1st result is the pdf. See page 4 for the power comment: Allatoona loses 25% of it’s hydrolectric capacity at the 828-830 ft level”. Hmmm, seems we are at 818 now….so that means we are in a mode of already moving towards power loss of 25% or more already? Please correct me if I’m wrong here. This pdf also shows the SEPA power router mechanism, in fact they make the power quote. THanks to everyone for their helpful info…SK