Gwinnett County businesses allowed to use treated wastewater
A story at 11Alive tells us that Gwinnett County will allow landscapers, construction companies and others to take reclaimed wastewater from the F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center and use it for irrigation, street washing, sewer cleaning, etc.
Once again, it seems that some people don’t understand how things work. From the article:
Every day, 18 million gallons of waste water is treated at Gwinnett’s F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center until it is clean enough to place in the Chattahoochee River. Until now, the river is exactly where the water has gone, where it has floated gently away from Bradley [local landscaper] and other businesses that need it for watering lawns or street washing.
They make it sound like putting water back into the river is a bad thing, while the opposite is actually true. The more you put into the river, the less they need to release from Lake Lanier to keep the flow rate high enough in Florida. If you put less back into the river, more water will need to be released from Lanier to compensate.
That being said, I don’t think this will make a huge difference. The water can only be taken away by certified tank truck drivers, not via pipes, which will greatly reduce how much is lost. However, it sounds like landscapers are excited to waste their share of water. Bradley Griffin of Russell Landscape Group said:
“The sky’s the limit with just how much our company can use. Multiply that by all of the other landscape companies and construction companies, this is a big deal.”
Yea! Waste as much as you want!
However, water is already pumped from there to two golf courses, a county park, a city park and the Mall of Georgia. According to the AJC, those facilities used 209 million gallons of water last year. That makes a difference.
I’m guessing that those facilities are able to freely use the water for irrigation, since the water was just going to be “wasted” by going down the river. Anyone know what kind of restrictions those businesses are under for using that water?
March 14th, 2008 at 9:39 am
http://mainstreetnews.com/2008/03:12:08/C0312F.html
Mayor Asks EPD Director To Remove City From Level 4
Commerce has made an official request to be exempted from water restrictions forced upon 61 drought-stricken counties in Georgia.
In a letter to Dr. Carol Couch, director of the Environmental Protection Division, Mayor Charles L. Hardy Jr. presented the city’s argument that since its water supply was never imperiled by the drought last fall that it should be exempted from the state level 4 requirement.
“A Drought Contingency Plan was approved in November 1998 that established procedures to be followed when the reservoir reached certain pool elevations,” Hardy wrote. “This was based on the expected yield of the reservoir during low flow conditions. The drought plan was modified in November 2007 to more closely follow the EPD Level 2 and Level 4 outdoor water use guidelines. The plan activates with restrictions (Level 2) when the reservoir drops 1.0 foot from full pool, then a drop of 2.0 feet will activate mandatory restrictions (Level 4). As previously stated, during this drought period the reservoir only dropped 0.8 feet.”
Hardy also pointed out that the city reservoir was able to help Jefferson and Jackson County at the worst of the drought.
“The city’s ability to provide water to the surrounding communities was very evident when the City of Jefferson’s reservoir dropped critically low as well as the Bear Creek Reservoir which serves the JCWSA (Jackson County Water and Sewerage Authority). The provision of water to these systems averaged 0.9 mgd. The production at the treatment plant still only reached 50 percent capacity.”
Then, the mayor explained why the city wants out of the restrictions, noting that expansions of the water treatment plant and the wastewater plant since 1996 have left the city with a debt service of $13 million.
“The ability to pay this obligation is very dependent on the water sales for the system,” he wrote. “Any reductions in water sales will greatly affect the financial status of the city.”
Hardy also reported that officials met in late January with water officials from Toccoa, Lavonia, Royston, Carnesville, Comer, Banks County, Madison County, Franklin County, the Broad River Soil and Water Conservation District and the State Soil and Water Conservation agency.
“All parties represented were located within the Savannah-Upper Ogeechee River Basin,” he told Couch. “No jurisdiction represented had any difficulty in supplying water to their respective customers during the 2007 peak drought.”
Hardy asked that the city be allowed to manage its reservoir under its drought contingency plan “in lieu of the mandated state restrictions.”
“We will be glad to host another meeting with other Savannah-Upper Ogeechee River Basin water providers and invite you or our representative to attend and hear first hand our concerns about a ‘one size fits all’ solution to the state’s contingency plan,” he concluded.
The mayor also sent a copy of the letter to Rep. Tommy Benton.
March 14th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Sorry it’s off topic, but the queston has been raised several times on this forum how much water is needed to be released for Atlanta’s needs vs. the needs of downstream users. The best answer I have seen is here -
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/stories/2008/03/13/corps_0314.html
The Georgia EPD asked for the flow past Atlanta to be cut to 355.4 MGal/day which was considered by them to be enough for Atlanta and downstream water quality (dilution of sewage released).
The article doesn’t state what the flow was actually reduced to, but it references a minimum flow of 420 Million gallons / day which was set when Lanier was constructed, and a 484.7 MGal/day minimum which was apparently set by the state of Georgia.
Both of those higher numbers apparently are “year round” numbers and the article states that sewage needs to be diluted more during the warmer months than it does right now. The article at least implies that the figure they reduced to is the 420 MGal/day. Any reduction is a good start.
March 15th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
All this rain today can’t be helping our water shortage!
Maybe it’s time for the Atlanta Tornado Blog!
BGAWWWWWWKKKKK!
March 15th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
2.6 inches at my house in Gainesville. The lake should get a great lift from this one. Best case though we are still 15 feet below full pool. The drought may be easing, but we are still in the middle of a man-made drought as far as Lanier is concerned. Such a tremendous and unprecedented amount of water was sent downstream without concern for Lanier that while everyone else is coming out of the drought, Lanier is still in deep trouble.
March 16th, 2008 at 4:08 am
Drought seems to ending for Georgia, but ACE cannot keep releasing excessive amounts of flow from Buford Dam at Lake Lanier. As long as more water is released daily than flows into the lake from its watershed, then Lanier cannot recover and refill. This is still an issue with Florida, but Governor Crist has pissed off voters in his own state so he has less backing to threaten Georgia over rights to water.
March 16th, 2008 at 7:33 am
[...] started this blog last October. The USGS counted 0.65 inches of rain yesterday at Buford Dam, but others have seen totals over 2 inches (in the [...]