Atlanta Water Shortage

(note: Guest post by Rich)

The typical annual pattern as most of us now know is for Lake Lanier water levels to drop during the summer and fall months and rise or recharge during the winter and spring months.  The questions now are:
a. How much will Lanier rise this winter, and
b. How much should Lanier rise this winter?

There has been quite a bit of speculation as to how much Lanier will rise, but the truth is no one knows.  We can however shed some light on the question of how much Lanier should rise by looking at historical data.  You can see a graphical average of Lanier’s level here.

Keep in mind when looking at the average line, that it is artificially compressed because the corps of engineers manages the level by releasing more water as the level increases.  Because of that, the most important data you can get from the average line is the trend of which months Lanier tends to rise and which months Lanier tends to fall.  You can see that the main recharge period is January through March, and the main period of drop is July through November.

The best tool on this chart for information about how much it should actually rise is the action zone lines.  The three black lines show Corps on Engineers “action zones”.  The corps has four action zones which it uses to help guide their decisions regarding water releases.

As defined by the COE, “These zones were derived based on the past operation of the projects which considered time-of-year, historical pool level/release relationships, operational limits for conservation and recreational resource impact levels.”  In other words, these levels show what the Corps believes the water level should be at any given time of year.

We are currently well into zone four – the lowest / worst level.  So it is informative to look at the zone four line.  You can see that it is around 1055 ft for the beginning of January rising quickly to around 1065 ft at the beginning of March.  In other words, the COE considers 1055 to be a severely low level on January 1st, and 1065 to be a similarly severe low level on March 1st.

Let’s hope for ten feet of recharge this winter.  If we don’t get it, we will only be dropping deeper into zone four with increased summertime demand right around the corner.

Rich

Val Perry, the executive vice president of the Lake Lanier Association has said that he feels the true motive behind the water war might be economic competition.

Mr. Perry said “If you can disrupt our water flow and the amount of storage we have, Florida and Alabama would be the beneficiaries of that.”

What do you think?

(note: Guest post by Craig Sears)

County Health Departments across the metro Atlanta area are rightfully concerned about the health hazards of unmaintained pools, which will occur if pools are not allowed to open this summer.  Unmaintained pools can quickly turn into breeding grounds for mosquitoes that spread West Nile virus, and bacteria.

The use of mosquito killing chemicals might help, but would be totally unenforceable, and installing pool covers would be very expensive and still may not prevent mosquitoes from propagating.

County Health Departments will be unable and unprepared to enforce proper pool maintenance by homeowners.  Draining pools is not a good solution either because:

1. Leaving a pool drained for an extended period of time (like the entire summer) can cause structural damage to the pool itself, without the weight of the water in it.
2. After the first rain, we’re back where we started, with a stagnant pool of water.
3. Why would we want to waste all the perfectly good water we have in our pools when we are in the middle of a drought?

According to John Gormley, there were 9 confirmed cases of West Nile in Fulton county in Summer 2007.  Furthermore, there is a new mosquito spread disease found in Europe now with much higher mortality rates.  He quoted 40-50% in a presentation he gave to the APSP (Association of Pool and Spa Professionals) on January 8 at the Georgia Pool and Spa Forum in Roswell.

I’ve asked John for further documentation about this new disease.  When I have further specific information, I will add comments to this article.

Craig

Water Crunch has a nice list of the “5 water bills to watch in 2008″.  All of these bills are in Congress right now.

None have a direct, short-term impact on the southeast, but most of them could benefit everyone in the long run.

Check out the full list.

Fulton County has announced that for the second consecutive month, they have been able to reduce their water use by over the 10% goal set by the Governor.

Their usage for December, 2007 was down by 19.1% when compared to December, 2006.   Not bad, considering many water systems were unable to meet the goal in November.  I’d be curious to see how the others did in December when compared to Fulton.

Here is an article in today’s Detroit Free Press about the concern of northern states that we’re going to try to get some of their water.

It’s not a far-fetched fear.  Various states have proposed pipelines from the Great Lakes to their part of the country, going back many years.  Of course, the Great Lakes have their own problems and are near record low levels (down a few feet in most cases).

Michigan is trying hard to get legislation passed quickly that will protect their water.  With more and more people moving south, Michigan is losing seats in the House of Representatives.  The more seats they lose, the harder it will be to protect their water.

(note: Guest post by Bill Spurlock — thanks Bill!)

Thanks in part to the heavy rains in south Georgia over the past week and a half we are about to see a milestone at Buford Dam tomorrow. There is no scheduled release for the first time in a long time.

I’m sure that they have records up at the dam and could tell us when the last time this took place, but for sure it’s the first time since this drought started last year. Looking at the data for West Point, Andrews, and Woodruff, all have seen dramatic increases since the first of the year of between 1 to 6 feet. While the rise seems to have crested at West Point and Andrews over the past few days and is starting to drop again, the level at Woodruff is continuing to rise slowly.

Five week projections for Woodruff call for a slight further increase then more or less holding steady with perhaps a slight decrease over the rest of the month.

Bill

The AJC just posted these two articles about metro Atlanta swimming pools. Due to the drought, it’s very likely that most won’t be able to open.

They don’t give specific numbers, only that pools won’t open “if the state’s severe drought doesn’t ease”.

Under current water restrictions, swimming pools can’t be filled. Unless we get a lot of rain in the next few months, I can’t imagine that they’ll ease the restrictions. This would be quite a shame, as our 4 and 2 year olds had a great time swimming last summer.

Dr. Jeff Masters, co-founder of the Weather Underground, has written an excellent article about the the state of the drought, the causes of the drought, and a look ahead.

Some highlights:

• We had a very dry year in Atlanta, but Birmingham and Huntsville were even further below normal.
• Droughts tend to run in two-year cycles every 25 years, with longer ones sometimes mixed in.  2006 saw normal rainfall in Atlanta, which points to 2008 being quite dry.
• Global warming likely has nothing to do with the current drought.  The globe has warmed by 1° F in the past 100 years, but the southeastern U.S. has cooled by 0.1° F over the same period.  No one quite knows why.

All in all, it’s a great read.  Check it out.

Here’s an odd story of a 750,000 gallon water tower in North Carolina that was shot a few times by a high-powered rifle.  The only way officials say it can be repaired is from inside the tank, so they’re going to let it drain and then try to fix it (at a price of nearly $20,000).

They’re in a pretty bad drought up there as well, so it seems like they could find a way to apply a temporary fix to the outside of the tank until it drained from normal use.  Otherwise, they’re going to waste quite a lot of water.