Is the Drought Over?
Watercrunch tackles the big question — “is the drought over?”
In a word, no. However, there continue to be promising signs. The area of “exceptional drought” is getting smaller, and our forecast through May is “Drought ongoing, some improvement”, which sounds about right.
I really like the analogy that watercrunch uses: “Droughts are like a recession in a way, its hard to tell exactly when they first occur and hard to know exactly when they are over.”
Here in Georgia, we’re facing two kinds of drought:
- The natural drought caused by a lack of rain, which might be easing up a bit.
- The man-made drought, caused by sending billions of gallons down the river to Florida — some by mistake, some by law.
Until both of those problems are resolved, we’ll continue to be concerned. The recent rainfall has been nice, but Lanier continues to be way, way below where it should be.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:30 am
The natural drought is ending for Georgia, but Lake Lanier will not refill unless the outtake from Buford Dam becomes less than the intake into Lake Lanier. The fight over the reservoir’s water will not be ending soon. Florida has to be told that Lanier can no longer supply Lake Seminole with 3.2 billion gallons of water daily discharged from Woodruff Dam down Apalachicola River.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:46 am
The main issue is still the obsolete old coal-fired Scholz power plant located below Woodruff Dam in Florida. It requires a water flow of 3+ billion gallons daily down the Apalachicola River. The plant has an old open canal that feeds water to the turbines from the river. Gulf Power Company is very cheap minded, because they could have put a pipe into the canal, and filled it in, with a water pump to draw the water as needed. Instead if the flow level of the river drops below 3 billion gallons, then water does not flow down canal to the plant. The mussels needing water is really a ploy to keep the plant operating.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:53 am
One last comment: Lanier was drained down last summer basically to keep Lake Seminole level high to release the 3+ billion flow daily from Woodruff Dam. If this policy does not change, then Lanier will be drawn down even more next summer. Homeowners association for the lake must sue ACE to stop releasing excessive outflows to please Gulf Power Company.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Look at Jay Randal trying to break into the Top Commentators
LITTLE WILL NOT BE DENIED
I AM YOUR NEIGHBOR - LEND ME SOME WATER
March 17th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
A small patch of slightly above normal rain does not make for an end to a record setting drought. It might get some areas out of the exceptional drought zone for awhile though. This is the time of year that water surges into the basin. I wouldn’t call water that’s expected a sign of the end of the drought.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Rkolter - the drought is unquestionably easing. That is a bit of a seperate issue from Lanier which is experiencing a man-made drought. Normal rains are going to have an uphill battle to make Lanier recover from the extraordinary amount released to Florida last year. Had that not happened, the crisis would be over. As it is, lake Lanier is still deeply in crisis.
But hey, look at the bright side. Everyone south of us is doing great. We sent Lanier’s water down there when they needed it. Now they have plenty of water. Unfortunately they can’t reciprocate and send some of their surplus up to us - it just flushes into the ocean which doesn’t really need any more water. Along the ACF, only north Georgia is still feeling the pain of the drought. Thanks Florida and Alabama.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
NICE TRY RICHS
DROUGHT OVER
GO HOME
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
March 17th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
*BANG!*Shoots C. Little with hunting rifle*
Chick-fil-a sammiches for everyone!Yummy!
March 17th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Funny thing…. If you look at those drought maps, we were sending water from the most drought stricken area into areas that weren’t in as severe need.
March 18th, 2008 at 5:19 am
FUNNY? YOU CALL THAT FUNNY?
AND SOUTHSIDE STEVE, ENOUGH OF THAT, EAT LESS CHICKEN!
March 18th, 2008 at 7:15 am
RichS - Droughts have a natural ebb and flow to them, the same as any weather pattern. That you’ve had some nice soaking rains doesn’t mean the weather pattern has changed; just that there’s been a brief respite.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:17 am
North Georgia just had its brush with the future and will quickly forget. The fact is that two generations in N. GA have avoided the expense and trouble of building an independent water supply and distribution system. Two dry summers and we are right back on the edge. The Buford dam is a federal project built for flood control and river management. Water supply is a secondary mission. We have BOATS and homes (think of the sewerage) discharging into our drinking water, which we then pay to clean up.
Study the history of New York City and you will uncover an interesting story of a 100 year plan to ensure very clean and huge supply of water. (NYC has a 700+ day supply in their system right now). They pull their water from a system of dammed valley lakes in the wet Catskill moutains 100 to 150 miles away from the city. They own every square inch of the watersheds and have total control. Our dumb developer driven approach merely passes the cost and task on to our kids and grand kids.
I doubt the citizens of GA are willing to step up and actually pay for a water supply system for future generations. The people whp planned the NYC water supply system in 1860-1880 were long gone before its was complted in the mid-1960s.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:58 am
DC - I think most residents of North Georgia wish the federal government had stayed out and Georgia had built buford dam instead. Since it didn’t happen that way, the rain that falls on Georgia dirt becomes federal property almost as soon as it hits the ground.
That wouldn’t be a problem if the federal government took a good look at prioritizing that water. Unfortunately it hasn’t and it is still operating on fifty year old projections of what the dam would be useful for.
The only recent time an arm of the federal government took a look at how the water should be allocated was by the Corps of Engineers. They logically determined that water supply for Atlanta was of critical importance and allocated a portion of Lanier for that purpose. Unfortunately the courts said the Corps exceeded it’s authority. Congress needs to prioritize the use of this water instead of wasting time worrying about steroids in baseball and the other hundreds of idiotic items it gets involved with every month.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Kolter,
Haven’t you heard the news?
THE SKY IS NOT FALLING!
Love,
Little
March 19th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
P.S. Tell Ann I said “hello”
March 19th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
IT’S RAINING IT’S POURING THE ATLANTA WATER SHORTAGE BLOG IS BORING
March 19th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
By the way DC …
“The people whp planned the NYC water supply system in 1860-1880 were long gone before its was complted in the mid-1960s.”
I think during that period of time, Atlanta was busy being burned to the ground by northerners.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Chicken Little,
You might be the top commentator, but your comments are rarely substantive or on topic… although they are occasionally clever.
March 20th, 2008 at 5:44 am
awwwwwww Craig, I didn’t know you cared!
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my adoring fans.
Chicken Little “What drought?” t-shirts, beach towels, & water bottles will soon be available here on the Atlanta Water Shortage Blog
BGAAAAAWWWKKK!
March 20th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Good point on the burning of Atlanta!
The real point I’m making is that water supply to major cities are a huge undertaking that require multiple generational thinking.
Living in Atlanta has been quite interesting. I just think the metro has hit up against the constraints of its sprawl and developer driven approach. Today its water in the future it will be energy costs. Atlanta is hardly alone in this.
I just don’t think that our political system is capable of thinking beyond the current situation and takes a narrow view of the ‘commons’ and responsibility to future generations. It goes way beyond money - after all we spend (OK, borrow) $12 billion a month to do whatever it is we are doing in Iraq but can’t think of our own public infrastructure.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Honestly I don’t know how much can be done in the way of planning reservoirs. Obviously you can’t just put a reservoir wherever you want. There are some criteria like natural valley, water flow, etc. Not something I know much about, but I doubt there are any more areas we can just dam up and have a new lake Lanier.
So fifty years ago, the federal governemt appropriated a piece of Georgia that is now critical to the welfare of our state. We can’t buy it back, and we only have minimal say in how it is operated. The federal government did not do Georgia a favor by building the dam in that it preempted Georgia from doing so.
March 20th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
STATES RIGHTS!
SECEDE!
March 21st, 2008 at 8:10 am
DC, I agree with you completely. I’m a Georgia resident also and agree that there is no political will to solve this problem long-term. Our state is totally developer-driven and we are developing ourselves into a nightmare situation. North Georgia wants to mooch off the federal government for its water supply, then when that water supply gets low, they want to blame the federal government!
March 21st, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Just when my blood pressure was returning to normal…. Carol’s back.
It’s federal water, they built the dam, Atlanta’s too crowded, no planning, blah blah blah……….
March 21st, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Uh, yeah, RichS. And what part of that do you dispute?
It took forever before you would finally realize/admit that the Feds actually own the dam.
March 22nd, 2008 at 6:21 am
Carol, I thought you had left town!?!
BGAAAWKKK - welcome back!
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Thanks, CL!
March 22nd, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Aww,are we all invited to the Carol-ChickenLittle wedding?
And btw Chicken,Im not ‘Steve’,Im Shannon(yes,as in female).
State succession might not be such a bad idea…but we’d still be stuck with gooberner Sonny-no-do,so we wouldnt be much better off…
March 23rd, 2008 at 7:28 pm
I have a cousin named Shannon….what the heck..this IS Georgia!
BGAWWWWKKKKKK!
March 24th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Can someone explain to me whether the argument that “we only use “x” tiny percentage of the water that falls in our state, therefore the problem is not overdevelopment…” is ridiculous or not? I mean wouldnt you assume that, given the natural needs of the environment, humans would only use a tiny fraction of the total rainwater?
Ive heard this from a few different sources, and it smells to me…
March 24th, 2008 at 7:33 am
Interesting … it’s now March 24 and the long range forecast, again, shows only one day with a 30% chance of ’showers’ next weekend, with fire warnings starting up again in the mid section of the state.
I don’t think this drought is over.
March 24th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Hi Brandon - That’s a good question. I do think the argument you bring up has validity as a response to those who say lake Lanier is going dry because of overdevelopment.
It also might be meaningful if you compare Georgia to other states that get less rainfall and use more water - particularly when people from those states criticise Georgia for reckless water use.
March 24th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Brandon,
The current drought, and indeed any of the regional droughts of the last few decades, would have caused hardship even in a circa 1900 Georgia, and circa 1900 Georgia certainly wasn’t “overdeveloped”. Crops would have withered in the fields.
It is true, however, that increases in population combined with long term climatic shifts are stressing water resources not only in the southeast but in other regions of the USA as well, especially the west. In the west it is becoming increasingly clear that water resources, no matter how well engineered or managed, will simply not meet the projected population increases of the next 30 years.
Locally, if one really wants to blame “overdevelopment” for the current water problems then one must blame overdevelopment in Alabama and Florida as well as Georgia. Here’s why. Last year’s record Lanier drawdown wasn’t necessary to serve the needs of Georgia, nor was it necessary to serve the needs of endangered mussels in Florida*. Instead, last year’s record Lanier drawdown was necessary to serve the needs of power plants in Alabama and Florida. And the only reason it was “necessary” is because US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) policy made it so.
USACE likes to say that they are only following the “law”, but what they conveniently omit is the fact that the “law” they follow is a direct product of the policy they set, not visa versa. To be clear, USACE policy is not written in stone, and Congress can and likely will ultimately force a change in USACE policy regarding Lanier. It should also be noted that power plants can be designed to use much less cooling water than that currently required by the plants in Alabama and Florida downstream from Lake Lanier.
If the drought continues this year – and there is little evidence to suggest that it will not – the massive Lanier outflows of last year simply won’t be repeated. They won’t be repeated because reality will trump USACE policy just as it did in 2001 and 2002 after 2000’s massive drawdown to 1055.61 feet.
– DSO —
*US News and World Report, October 19, 2007, “High and Dry in the South” – Excerpt: According to Tom MacKenzie, a spokesperson for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the flow rate that was mandated in 2006—5,000 cubic feet per second—is not indelible. It is possible, he says, that the number could go lower. Moreover, he says, the figure of 5,000 cfs was proposed originally by the corps because it met “minimum operating needs” for power plants, not because it met some scientific absolute for the animals.
March 24th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Steve - The forcast doesn’t look great, but if you look at the ten day and fifteen day, there still looks to be plenty of rain. We’re not having a bad year so far and I’m hopeful that the weather pattern that caused our problems is done.
That being said, I’m not nearly as hopeful about the condition of lake Lanier since the drought was compounded by releasing massive amounts of water from Lanier in a quixotic attempt to spare Florida, Alabama, and some mussels from feeling any ill effect of the drought.
March 24th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Good post DSO. You should chime in more often.
March 24th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I would have to disagree with DSO on one key point - the USACE did not create the laws that it has to follow. And even if it’s policies were considered in the creation of the law, the fact that there are now laws still means the USACE has to abide by them. Altering the USACE’s policy won’t change that.
As an example, they tried to allocate more of Lanier’s water for Atlanta’s use (a change in their policy) but were not allowed to do so due to the existing laws in place.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Currently 0% of GA is in ‘exceptional’ drought,compared to 50% in December…there seems to be a break in the drought but its important to remember that last March was also very wet.North GA still has severe-to-extreme conditions.I dont see how Congress can just allow the ACE to release the same amount as last year.Lanier is still about 9 feet below where it was this time last year.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
BACK OFF RICHS!!!!
BGAWWWKKKKK!
March 24th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
C.L. - Come on up and visit. We love chickens up here in Gainesville.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gainesville,_Georgia
March 25th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Im in the mood for chick-fil-a again…
March 25th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Browsing through the watercrunch website that this thread pointed to, and I see an interesting quote. It’s unsourced, but I have no reason to doubt it.
“Believe or not, the State of Georgia has led by several orders of magnitude the Southeast in the development in new water reservoirs for the last twenty years.”
I just point it out because of all the criticism Georgia seems to take for poor planning (Carol).
March 25th, 2008 at 10:39 am
GA is at least trying to get somewhere with our own resoivoirs,its AL and FL that keep interfering.Maybe we should protest the next time FL wants to build a new desal plant or AL wants to boil peanuts and eat moon pies:)
March 25th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
This article in the AJC:
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/03/10/reservoirs_0311.html
says the following:
“A dozen new water supply reservoirs are already underway in Georgia, seven of them in metro Atlanta.”
March 25th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
This article (linked to by the last one) has some very good information on the size and status of various existing and proposed reservoirs around the state:
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/03/11/reservoirs0311.html?cxntlid=inform_artr
March 25th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I knew we had several reservoirs in progress, I just didn’t know that made us unique among southeastern states. I also wonder about the infamous reservoir that Sonny P killed. Was it just one of many reservoirs or was it a much larger and more important reservoir than all the others that are in progress.
March 25th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
KEN COOK JUST SAID LAKE LANIER IS UP 5′ THIS MONTH!
BGAAAAWWWKKKK!
March 25th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
ACE just updated their forecast chart. They are forecasting about a two foot gain which is better than their previous forecasts. I assume that takes into account their reduced releases.
http://water.sam.usace.army.mil/lanfc.htm
The other interesting thing about this chart is they added a new line for “Record Low Elevations 1960-2007″. So you can see what the previous low was for a given date. At the beginning of the year, we were almost five feet below the previous low. We have narrowed to about four feet so you could look at that as an improvement. Still four feet below the previous low for this time of year is a huge deficit.
March 26th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Actually Ken Cook is wrong. We are up about 3′ for the month and about 5.5′ from the low in late December.
March 28th, 2008 at 7:12 am
That is great news on the new dams and lakes for resevoiurs.
March 28th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Rkolter, your statement that, “the USACE did not create the laws that it has to follow” is both true and false. It is true that the USACE is governed by a myriad of federal laws. However, under those laws, and in particular the Flood Control Act of 1944 and Engineer Regulation 1110-2-240 (33 C.F.R. Part 222.5), the USACE is given wide latitude in determining intrastate water allocations and minimum river flows.
It is also true, however, that the USACE creates many of the laws it follows. For example, the requirement to maintain a minimum 5000 cfs flow in Florida was indeed a “law”, but it was not a law until USACE proposed it and both the USACE and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) ratified it in 2006. According to a USFWS spokesman, the minimum flow of 5000 cfs was set based on the needs of downstream power plants, not the needs of endangered mussels in Florida.
Unfortunately, reality reared its ugly head in 2007, just as it did in 2001 and 2002, and that reality is this: 5000 cfs is simply unsustainable in periods of severe drought. It is a lesson that the USACE should have learned in 2001 and 2002.
In 2007, while Lanier was dropping to record low levels, USACE spokesmen said they were “just following the law” in continuing the large outflows from Lanier. However, what the spokesmen failed to mention was that the “law” they were following was the law that USACE together with the USFWS created in 2006. This is the law of which I spoke earlier.
Lastly, there is simply too much legal wrangling going on in these regional water wars to consider any court decision as definitive, unless the court is SCOTUS, and even then Congress could just make new law.
– DSO –
March 30th, 2008 at 6:00 am
Downstream flows are ROCKING!
BGAAAWWWKKK!
March 30th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Lanier didn’t get much impact from this rain Little. Gain was less than the loss we were seeing every day last fall by half. More rain in the forecast. Hopefully it is a litte more meaningful than this one was.