Pools will be allowed to open this summer
Gov. Sonny Perdue announced today that the state is going to allow outdoor swimming pools to open this summer. Had Perdue not taken this step, it’s unlikely that pools could have opened due to continuing Level 4 drought restrictions. This decision affects all 61 north Georgia counties affected by the water-use ban, and it goes along with the announcement earlier today that watering restrictions would be eased a little bit.
It is estimated that swimming pools use about seven million gallons of water per day, which is less than one percent of the overall water usage in the area.
As the father of two young girls, I’m glad they’ll be able to use the neighborhood pool this summer. However, I have to wonder if this isn’t a bit premature, as we’re still in far worse shape than we were at this time last year. The next few months should tell us a lot.
February 6th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Well I just can’t understand why Governor Perdue doesn’t just pray for more rain.
It doesn’t surprise me that the governor lacks the strength of will to close the pools, the state government lacks the strength of will to do a lot of what could help. As for “only” 1% of use, didn’t we hear the same thing about the car washes? It seems to me that if you’d only have to shut down a few of these “only” 1% users before those counties that failed it could have met their usage reduction targets of 10%.
February 7th, 2008 at 12:31 am
It’s starting to sound like Perdue just wanted to use the drought to gain more access to water rights for future growth, and there was really no threat of running out.
February 7th, 2008 at 7:02 am
can’t wait to water my daffodils!
Sonny is an idiot, just like most of the people who voted for him
(shucks, at least he’s not a LIBRAL(sic))
February 7th, 2008 at 8:01 am
I think this is bad news. If Atlanta faces worsening conditions by the end of the summer, who is going to come to our rescue? We are the ones creating our own disaster. We simply can’t blame the drought anymore, when the problem is clearly man made.
Of course, Sonny Perdue continues to have a 52% approval rating, so it looks like if we run out of water, we Georgians deserve it.
February 7th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I work in the pool industry and my initial stance was in support of the restrictions on pools but what many people don’t realize is swimming pools that aren’t kept at proper level can cause filtration problems which in turn can cause the pool to become stagnant. The stagnant water being a health hazard will have to be drained creating a much higher usage of water to refill when the drought subsides. This also causes an elimination of back up/emergency water sources in the event the drought becomes more severe. The water we have must be kept up for emergency reserve and hopefully we will not have to tap into it. But, if the pools become stagnant due to inoperable water levels and are drained there will be no local option.
February 7th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
JohnC makes a good point.Why did Sonny ease both water restrictions and allow pools to open right after the court ruling?
February 7th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
I like this thread of speculation… can anyone think of reasons for these two major decisions, in the opposite direction of restriction, happening right after the court ruling?
February 8th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Is it their idea of damage control? Now that the only solution to the water problems that they’ve been considering has failed, they’re going to start pretending the problem isn’t that much of a problem. I have no idea, I’m grasping at straws here…..
February 8th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
How about this answer -
Georgia can’t get anyone downstream to share the pain by cutting back on their demands from Lanier, and it can’t reserve a meaningful part of Lanier for it’s drinking water. So maybe it’s futile to try to conserve when downstream interests keep demanding their portion (which is much larger than Georgia’s portion apparently).
February 9th, 2008 at 9:50 am
It looks like Georgia has found another “solution” instead of wise use and conservation of limited water resources. According to a story in the AJC on Friday 02/08, the legislature is attempting to move the Georgia border north. The article states that “an erroneous survey completed in 1818 and never accepted by the state of Georgia placed the border 1.1 miles below what Congress had earlier established as the boundary”. A move 1.1 miles north would allow Georgia to withdraw water from the Tennessee river. I wonder if Georgia has thought about how much it would cost in infrastructure and operating costs to transport this new source all the way to Atlanta. Also, why stop with Tennessee, Florida, and Alabama - Isn’t there some water in South Carolina or North Carolina that Georgia can claim? Let’s piss off all the neighbors!
February 9th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
coelacanth — I heard that too, I think it’s tremendously funny! They really must be out of ideas then if they’re resorting to this kind of foolishness. If they start massing tanks on the border I’ll start to get worried.
RichS — They did get the downstream users to reduce their intake. The Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to allow the mussels that you hate so much to have less water. Or did you forget? Downstream users are having a drought too you know, it’s the entire southeast.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Geez,has Georgia completely forgot that we are a COASTAL state??HEL-L-LO-O!DESAL,anyone??And forget all that “oh waah waah it would take sooooo looong and we’re just tooo lazy waah waah”,in the time it takes for all the ‘legal wrangling’ and red tape,steps could be underway for a desal plant.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
…and I realize that was a wasted post as well.*sigh*
February 9th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Andrew - I believe the reduction you are talking about was five percent. And it happened over the protests of Florida.
Southside - I did a post a month or two ago breaking down some of the costs of a desal plant. Honestly I don’t think it’s feasible.
February 11th, 2008 at 9:28 am
It seems to me that the state government is side-stepping the root cause to the water problem for metro Atlanta. It is not simply a matter of a drought, there is the other minor issue of the growing human demand on the limited water resources. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Apr 05, 2007, metro Atlanta is the fastest growing metropolitan area in the US for 2007, passing the 5 million mark last year. I would humbly suggest that Lakes Alatoona and Lanier and its feeder the Chattahoochee, simply cannot meet this demand any longer, even at full level. Unbridled urban sprawl driven by [development] greed, with a tacit nod from state/county-level bureaucrats, is driving this problem to its inevitable, ugly endgame.
It is not about the weather..IMHO.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:13 am
RichS — you are wrong, about Florida anyway. My Mom lives down there and they now have a PERMANENT water restriction (as in forever and always) — you may only water your lawn once a week. Yet Sonny is allowing 3 times a week? I am dismayed at the way Georgians refuse to look in the mirror. Something about waiting until your slate is clean before accusing others ….
February 11th, 2008 at 11:41 am
beachmom — currently, we cannot water our lawns AT ALL in the Atlanta metro area.
It isn’t Atlanta that seems to be constantly complaining about others’ water use — the folks in Florida get 95% of the flow of the river and still seem to find reasons to complain.
February 11th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I was using Mickey’s estimate at how the flow at Lanier could be adjusted:
http://www.atlantawatershortage.com/20071116/feds-allow-plan-to-reduce-water-flow-from-lanier/
February 11th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Beachmom - I think you are talking about some regional restrictions in parts of Florida that have nothing to do with the ACF.
Nevertheless, my concern with Florida isn’t how much water they use, it is how much water they demand. Whether they use it or simply let it drain into the gulf of Mexico, once we release it from our reservoirs it’s gone.
Honestly I would have more sympathy for their position if they were using it. As it is, they are demanding it but it gets very little use.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
KevinK - I have to disagree. A lot has been made of the population growth of Atlanta, but you have to look at more than just that number.
The population growth of Atlanta is meaningless. What is meaningful is the amount of water consumption within a given system. The primary system we are talking about is ACF.
I could go through the math for you, but the numbers are all over this forum already. Truth is that we are heading toward a point of stressing the system, but we aren’t there yet. We have plenty of inflow to Lanier, and plenty of storage in Lanier to supply north Georgia’s water needs for the forseeable future.
Lanier is too small and too near the headwaters however to maintain minimum flow into Florida during a drought. One dry summer of trying to do that decimated it. If you look at the numbers, it wasn’t Atlanta use that nearly sucked Lanier dry, it was Florida’s minimum flow demand.
February 12th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Any news on moving the northern border a mile?
I don’t see any legal way to claim the land. New technology like lasers and GPS can’t overrule the placement of a survey marker, but I’m wondering if GA might have rights to any Tennessee River water rights?
So far I’m reading that the “deed” for TN clearly says the marker is a mile south of the river, while GA is more vague. But so far nothing to indicate that the line should be to the TN River.
I actually like the idea but not sure GA has any legal footing at all.
February 13th, 2008 at 12:22 am
Sounds like a huge longshot to me. Though if we could tap the Tenessee river it would be much more feasible to bring that water in than it would be to pipe in desalinized water.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:41 am
Andrew,
In response to your 1% of water comment (used by pools and car washes), in relation to the 10% mandated reduction…
You can take this to the point of absurdity, and start mandating that restaurants close because they use a lot of water, and pet stores have to stop selling fish and grooming dogs, and hair salons can’t wash hair. And all kinds of crazy talk. You end up running every business out of business, and then where would we be? Every business uses water to some degree, so let’s be realistic here.
What we need to look at is the standard that we’re trying to meet (10% reduction), and the reasonableness of it. The 10% mandatory reduction is a totally arbitrary number that Sonny and Carol picked out of the air. There was no scientific reason for picking 10%. They just decided that it sounded like a good amount that we could reasonably reach by cutting back and instituting restrictions.
So let’s not get hung up on the 10%. Cutting back 10% is not going to prevent us from running out of water.
To further elaborate, we’re talking about cutting back 10% of our water usage. The ENTIRE city of Atlanta only uses 3% of all the water released from Lanier. So we’re only talking about saving 10% of 3%, which is less than a third of a percent of the water released from Lanier daily. Now you want to talk about saving 1% of 10% of 3% by keeping pools closed? It’s ridiculous when you look at the benefits of keeping the pools open.
So where can we save a significant amount of water that will actually make a difference to our current predicament? 56% of the water released from Lanier daily goes to operate GA Power plants, and the rest to our downstream friends who see no need to restrict their water usage.
Which brings me to the point that MANY on this list are now commenting on, the fact that this entire water scare and issue is all based on politics. If the Army Corps did a better job of managing our lake level, we wouldn’t be in this position. But they haven’t done that because they are using manuals written in the 1950s, and when they try to get funding to update them, Alabama Senator Shelby tried to block them.
What reason could he have to do that? To attract more businesses to relocate to Alabama, because they’ll be too scared to move to Atlanta, because it looks like we can’t manage our water.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:48 am
Regarding other sources of water…
Clearly we need more reservoirs, and we need to find a way to get them built, even though Alabama wants to play politics and block those too, for their own selfish reasons.
Piping the TN river would make more sense than desalination, although I agree it will be difficult to lay claim to that 1 mile now 190 years after the fact.
I’ve also spoken at length with a formerly prominent but now retired civil engineer about another plan…. piping water from the Savannah river at the “point of no return,” in other words at the point just before the river water mixes with salt water. Then you don’t have to desalinate, which is very expensive, and you don’t have anyone else claiming that they need the water, because it was about to enter the ocean anyway.
And last time I checked :), Savannah is in GA, so no need for any border wars.
February 13th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
The original Articles of Agreement did specify that the Tennessee River would be within Georgia sate line.
The state line will not be affected but what about the water rights?
…………
1802 Articles of Agreement and Cession
In 1802 the Articles of Agreement and Cession between Georgia and the United States ceded to the United States Georgia’s Western lands, most of which, at that time consisted of the Mississippi Territory created by Congress in 1798.
The East boundary of Georgia was described as “beginning on the Western bank of the Chatahoochie River where the same crosses the boundary line between the United States and Spain; running thence up the said River Chatahoochie, and along the Western bank thereof to the great bend thereof, next above the place where a certain creek or river called the “Uchee” (being the first considerable stream on the Western side, above the Cussetas and Coweta towns), empties into the Chatahoochie River, thence in a direct line to Nickajack, on the Tennessee River; thence crossing the said last-mentioned river, and thence running up the said Tennessee River and along the Western Bank thereof to the Southern Boundary line of the State of Tennessee.”
February 14th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Interesting - I hadn’t followed the debate at all regarding the northern border. It would be pretty hard to make a case for annexing land from Tennessee, but not quite such a stretch to claim some water rights. There is plenty of water in the Tennessee river - no one would be damaged even though they will act like they are just out of spite.
February 14th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
A lot of times a land deed will only say that the property line is against a certain river which is the case here. Then Rivers move around and can be diverted, etc.
Also, the Nickajack lake that was created with the dam now has pushed the Nickajack lake across and over to the GA state line. There is a cavern that is over 90 feet deep from the Tennessee River in GA.
This might be settled with a very technical law by the Supreme Court.
February 14th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
You’re convincing me John. There seems to be something there.
I might be a little easier to convince than a Tennessean though.
February 14th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Sen. Shafer’s explanation of the GA-TN border resurvey proposal is at http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/021208/opinion_20080212006.shtml
Also, the AP says the governors will not meet the Feb. 15 deadline:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iYOMIAzXREFVjcYtNagkheasCXwAD8UQA9801
February 15th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Hey guys,
Alternet just posted this excellent interview with Maude Barlow, a water conservation expert on a book tour at the moment, promoting her book “Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water”.
I’ve not read this book yet, but I plan to after reading this interview:
http://www.alternet.org/water/76819/
Read and discuss.
(I’m guessing Mickey is off on a well-deserved holiday, but maybe when he returns he can set this up in its own post…)
st
February 16th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Rich, yeah I can see why Tennessee wouldn’t want to subject themselves to endless litigation and fighting with GA.
I mentioned in an earlier post that Atlanta would need to meet a lot of requirements for conservation and sustainable development.
There are also issues with pumping water hundreds of miles from the source, etc.
I was just thinking Tennessee is a big river, although I don’t know all the issues.
All of the states should be utilizing their resources better to find solutions and work together instead of wasting all this time and letting the courts make the final ruling based on a technical issue.
February 17th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
“Work together”?When was the last time you saw politicians doing THAT?The average U.S. politician(both parties)has the mindset of a snot nosed brat squabbling with other kids in the sandbox.We should just give Sonny,Charlie & Bobby a sandbox,a pail and a shovel and see what happens.
February 19th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
John, the beauty of bringing water from the TN river vs desal is not only the saved cost of desal, and less miles pipeline necessary, but also that not a lot of pumping would be necessary. Remember distance isn’t the important issue, elevation is. Water will move itself downhill no matter how many miles it needs to move.
If we were to tap water from the TN river, we would be bringing it from a much higher elevation than sea level (700 feet higher maybe?) thereby saving an ENORMOUS amount of energy in comparision.
February 20th, 2008 at 5:48 am
The main problem with DESAL has to do with the amount of money it costs. the amount of time it takes is a non factor. when you need it you need it. if we really wanted to find a solution, we would be more open to the idea of “toilet to tap” which people don’t seem to understand pretty much happens anyways if you understand the water cycle. If the water gets cleaned and filtered like normal whats the difference between human and animal droppings? i know at first it sounds gross, but we have to do something if we want to save wildlife, the lakes and possible even ourselves. to learn more about this amazing and nessicary technique check out http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=17227
please try to keep an open mind about it
February 20th, 2008 at 5:53 am
oh not to mentoin if you live downstream of a city… like everyone else… you are getting the toilet to tap treatment because their treated water goes into the rivers mainly and juse gets diluted as it goes downstream…
February 21st, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Rich, there are a lot more problems involved with an inter basin transfer, and so far GA has said that they have no intentions of doing a IBT, so this contradicts what they have told Agusta and Savannah.
sorry I don’t have time to touch on every issue.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I just want to be a top 5 commentator!