Plan being considered to keep more water in Lake Lanier
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service has until June 1 to review a new proposal that would reduce the amount of water being released from Lake Lanier by about 10%. However, some are already complaining that it’s not enough. According to Pat Stevens, the Atlanta Regional Commission’s environmental planning chief, the lake would only be about one foot higher right now if this plan had been in place back when the drought began. A foot would certainly help, but not much.
This new plan, if passed, would be in effect for about three years. They are working on a new “official” plan, and this move would simply be for the interim.
April 18th, 2008 at 11:31 am
At the height of the water loss during last summer, that one foot would have bought Atlanta about a week.
I’m interested in seeing how much water they let out starting this summer. Are we still looking at 1.5 billion gallons of outflow a day?
April 21st, 2008 at 10:42 am
Here are the levels for the lake on 4/21 in the years shown. I find it interesting that in one year (from 4/21/02 to 4/2103), the lake gained more than 8′. So, even though we’re still really low, it could gain a lot in one year if it rains enough.
2008 1057.55
2007 1068.46
2006 1069.26
2005 1071.01
2004 1070.34
2003 1072.91
2002 1064.79
2001 1062.02
2000 1068.07
1999 1068.04