Army Corps to move forward with rewriting the river system manual
(thanks to Craig for the link) Despite Sen. Richard Shelby’s ridiculous objections, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to move forward on updating the operating manuals for the ACF river system.
Parts of the manuals have not been updated since they were first written in 1958 and obviously need an overhaul. As Senator Saxby Chambliss points out, “for the ACF Basin, the only approved master manual was prepared in 1958 and does not even include the federal facilities at West Point, Walter F. George or George W. Andrews.”
As with other recent moves, this is unlikely to offer any benefit in the near future. However, it’s nice to see they’re at least doing something to help the long-term outlook.
February 2nd, 2008 at 4:13 am
I hope ACE realizes that Lake Lanier cannot be the sole recharge reservoir for Lake Seminole on the Florida border.
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:32 am
Some friends and I were discussing the drought and Atlanta, and one, who is a plumbing engineer, asked, “What’s Atlanta’s net impact on water flow?”,
That is, We know how much water is taken from Lake Lanier, and how much flows from West Point Lake. Is the water Atlanta takes (and is it at Morgan Falls?) a net loss for the Chattahoochee system? OR does sewer outflow and runoff make up the impact?
I’m betting not, but I’d like to hear what you guys think.
February 6th, 2008 at 12:46 am
We are WAY overdue for a re-write of this manual. I’m glad this is going to happen. It still doesn’t help our immediate situation, but promises to help prevent something like this from happening again.
Mr. Bill, I have heard from reliable authority that our (city of Atlanta) net impact is only 3-4% usage of the water taken out of Lanier, but I do not have a documented source for this. I have read that GA Power uses 56% of the water released from Lanier. And we know there are a number of other major downstream users such as bottling plants, paper mills, and other power plants. The major users are all industrial though. Residential water usage constitutes a very small portion of overall usage.