Obama sides with Florida in the water war; they have more votes
Presidential hopeful Barack Obama released a statement today that supports Florida in the 30+ year old water war with Georgia. The reason? They have 27 electoral votes while Georgia only has 15.
Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson have already written a letter to Obama expressing their disappointment.
Full details can be found in this AJC article.
Tags: barack obama, florida, georgia, johnny isakson, saxby chambliss, water war
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October 28th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
So that fact that if Georgia gets all the water it says it wants it will wipe out the wildlife in the Apalachee estuaries doesn’t enter in to it?
I’m a Floridian with friends in ATL & I’ve followed this blog with interest.. but I’m disappointed you take such a parochial line in this post.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
How about a little more conservation on the Florida side?
October 29th, 2008 at 5:00 am
How can you post such subjective line in a thread? This blog should inform people with facts instead of personal opinion, or maybe I am wrong here?
October 29th, 2008 at 5:03 am
Sorry about that — I was just playing off the AJC title…
October 29th, 2008 at 7:45 am
How is this not a political decision to win Florida? Seven days before the election, FLA, major swing state, dead heat?
Get real.
I don’t see how anyone can choose a side in this. At some point Atlanta will have to have water restrictions and when Lanier reaches low levels the release needs to be cut back.
Other wise Atlanta will need another water source, namely the Tenn River.
However, Obama is simply tring to win consertive Fla panhandle votes just before the election. Sorry, but Obama is all politics all the time. It’s really not even a federal issue in that a president needs to favor one state over the other.
October 29th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Walter - nobody wants to wipe out the wildlife in Florida. We’ve been debating the release levels here for well over a year now. Truth is that this year Florida has been in fine shape while north Georgia is still reeling from the massive releases made last year. I think most reasonable people now look back on that time and understand that too much water was released. We created a long term problem in north Georgia to keep river levels up for a few weeks.
The ACOE as a neutral party has enacted operating procedures which are less damaging to Georgia. Debate those actions if you want, but it was a reasonable, neutral, knowledgeable third party that stepped in and said the old policies weren’t workable in a time of drought.
Now Obama the munificent steps in one week from the election to share Georgia’s wealth of water with Florida. From each according to his ability….to each according to his electoral votes.
October 29th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Stated policies before the elections don’t mean that much — it’s the positions and actions of the winner *AFTER* the election that will matter the most.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I’m sorry, but ALL politicians are about politics, all the time, and do what it takes to win. Obama is only doing what politicians do. Show me a politican that doesn’t pander for votes, and i’ll show you one that won’t get elected…
October 29th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Little thinks all politics are local.
BGAWK!
October 29th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Yes, of course Obama is doing what politicians do. You have to assume what he is saying is exactly what he will do though. If you like having a lake Lanier to fish, ski, drink, etc., vote Obama at your peril. Truth is Obama has signalled which side he’s on while McCain hasn’t. Say what you will about him, at least he’s not trying to buy Florida votes with Georgia water.
October 29th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
RichS, have you ever seen McCain agree with Obama?
October 30th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Just keep in mind, that Obama said something that energized florida voters is one thing. If he’ll actually cut time out of his schedule to personally work on the water war is another entirely. Most likely this is the limit of Obama’s weigh in.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:05 am
I have always said that a scientific approach should be used. There has to be an agreement on how much water is available during droughts then make the proper allocations. You can’t have unregulated sprawl on one hand with a complete disregard for a source of water, and on the other hand you can’t have florida using it’s political influence to impose unreasonable restrictions either.
We need a comprehensive plan and less special interest imposing unreasonble demands on the limited supply of water.
I’m all for protecting the environment however it can’t go beyond the scope of what is necessary, or single out or punish one group of people in order impose some ideal or political victory.
What Obama and many other don’t understand is that no one in the south east wants Atlanta to run out of water and no one wants the envirornmet to be comprimised.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:09 pm
What is the natural flow of the water that existed when people settled in this country many years ago?
If Georgia and Atlanta want to overpopulate an area that does not have enough water to serve its needs, those downstream shouldn’t be punished.
There will be no water shortage when those using/misusing water have to pay a fair price for it.
I live in Atlanta and wish that Florida would conserve more, but really, why should they have to so that we can have water parks and car washes and 20-minute showers?
Please don’t bore me with answers that include, “Well, why should FL get 20-minute showers?,” and “Atlanta’s economic impact on the rest of the area . . . ”
If you use water, you need to pay for it. If you are a commercial interest (even one that sells nationally, like Coca-Cola), then you pass the cost on to the people who are creating a demand for your product (and water use).
The bottome line here? Georgia is allowing too many people to live here for the water that’s available. At least based on (realistically) unrestricted water use. Lawn watering restrictions? Hah. Charge people for their water use (after a reasonable amount of free water), then watch the problem disappear overnight.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
“The bottome line here? Georgia is allowing too many people to live here for the water that’s available.” - Are you serious?
You are not the worlds keeper. Feel free to decide what you want to do and where you want to live, but, make sure you try not to make decisions for the rest of us. Thankfully, that’s not your job.
A deeper reality, one that can not be dictated (nor should it) be dictated by government, is where peope should or should not live. If I have the water and my family grows, I promise you, I am going to keep more of it.
Florida is surrounded on 3 sides by water. If you want to live in an affected area, then deal with the reality and build these things, umm, there called desalination plants, pay for it (I mean that the people who need should pay for it) or move somewhere else if you don’t want to, but, don’t tell other people where they can or cannot live. That is absurd.
November 1st, 2008 at 4:32 am
yer all whacked
just remember to get out and vote on Tuesday
(unless of course you plan on voting for McAingry)
and here’s a little incentive - I promise to quit posting on the Atlanta Water “Shortage” Blog if Obama wins
BGAWK
November 1st, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Cryan’ in Atlanta wrote:
“You are not the worlds keeper. Feel free to decide what you want to do and where you want to live, but, make sure you try not to make decisions for the rest of us. Thankfully, that’s not your job.”
Too bad they let Republicans use the Internet. Especially the home-schooled ones who can’t read.
I never said people shouldn’t be allowed to live where they want . . . they just can’t steal from others to do it.
There’s not enough water in Georgia to support the people who live here (and the other 1 million on the way) without damning up the water that’s (naturally) flowing down South or conserving.
THAT’S the bottom line.
Say hello to Sarah for me at your next rally.
November 2nd, 2008 at 12:07 am
Hey Little please take that promise back because we don’t like water shortage blog with no humor.
November 2nd, 2008 at 12:07 am
Uh… “Water we waiting for” makes some very curious comments.
The Chattahoochie would be almost dry if it had been left to nature during this drought period, and almost everyone south of Atlanta would have a lot les water than they do now.
The nuclear power plant way downstream from Atlanta which is the main user of water released from Lake Lanier (using roughly ten times as much water as the entire Atlanta metro) would have had to shut down and probably could never have been built in the first place, and Apalachicola Bay would have a much lower water level and all the poor fisherman would have had to move on, probable many years ago.
That’s why reservoirs like Lake Lanier were built in the first place — to act as a capacitor to regulate river flow during times of low rainfall.
Atlanta could potentially exist (and historically *did* exist) without a manmade water storage facility (in the form of Lake Lanier) having been built in the Chattahoochie water basin, but those downstream interests are completely dependent on Lake Lanier.
I think that’s irresponsible.
I strongly agree that there would probably have been no water shortage if those using/misusing water have to pay a fair price for it. That’s why the aging power plants which exist here and there in this country need to be upgraded to not require so much water flow for cooling.
If that were done, this entire situation would have been largely a nonissue.
Nobody in the Atlanta metro gets free water. Our household typically uses between 2,000 and 3,000 gallons per month (don’t know for sure because Cobb County only breaks water usage into thousands of gallons, so 1,000 is the smaller unit), and we pay for the privilege, and more for the sewer cost to transport that water back to the river from which it came. What else would you have us pay?
November 2nd, 2008 at 7:30 am
Water we waiting for? Says:
(snip)
Say hello to Sarah for me at your next rally.
–
BGAAAAWWWWKKKK!
November 2nd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Prootwadl, that was an informative post. You made some solid points, however I would like more information on the actual returning of water to the river basin. I know the city of Atlanta returns most of the water the use as treated water, however the subburbs have too many septic systems that don’t return the water. I read somewhere that the city o the Atlanta can also access any amount of water because they are excluded from regulations, but then they go and sell the water to all of the surrounding areas. I don’t know all the details about this, except that a large portion of the Atlanta suburbs don’t return the water and are also outside the citie’s zoning regulations.
I haven’t read any hard numbers that Atlanta area is using too much water, except that Lanier is a very small water supply for a city that size.
I do know that North Carolina approved another IBT (Inter Basin Transfer) which meant they will take water and not return it to the Catawba River, and South Carolina has had to take the to federal court because they violated a federal law that requires cooperation from both states before an IBT can be made. North Carolina is saying there is plenty of water, but South Carolina is concerned about the amont of water available durring a drought.
It is more expensive to treat the water and return it yet that is what needs to be done if there isn’t enough for an IBT. This all very clear about exactly how much water each city and comunity can use and if they want to expand and have more development then they have an obliagion to return the water back to the river basen. While wealthy developers don’t want to pay the expense for proper water treatment.
You made some other good points but Georgia could have built their own reservoir also and I read somwhere that had been considered back a long time ago. But more recently they have been blocked by Alabama.
But one of the key issues is big cities and surrounding areas cercomventing federal laws and restrictions on IBT by using loopholes, which gets back to my last post about states reaching agreements on how much water is available.
And if I’m not mistaken Atlanta suburbs has way too many septic tanks and don’t return water. I”m also living in a 40 year old house in a suburb of Charleston and this house has been on city sewer treatment for over 30 years. It used to have a septic tank but when it got city water it was put on the waste water treatment. This wasn’t even an issue.
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Prootwadl, thanks for your response to my post. I won’t go into a long argument here about the natural state of water flow, but to answer your question, “What else would you have us pay?,” I would simply respond, “A tiered price for water.”
I think we could come to some reasonable figures as to how many gallons of water a person/househould can more than adequately live with per month. I’m sure the utilites and univertities could figure this out.
Anyone using MORE than this amount would then pay a premium price for excess water use.
I think we all agree the initial figure could err on the liberal side, but those who demand to water their lawns, take long showers, run their water during shaving/teeth brushing, frequently hand-wash their cars, own a pool, etc. should pay a premium for excess water use.
No one needs to be a Water Nazi in this scenario. Just look at how well voluntary water cutbacks worked last summer. Making EXCESS water use more costly would simply get people to treat water like electricity (e.g., turning off a light when you leave the room).
Developers could be required to build more water-efficient structures (e.g., low-flow toilets). Rain sensors could be made mandatory for landscape irrigation systems. New technologies might pay for themselves (in-ground moisture sensors would turn sprinklers on and off, based on the moisture in the soil, rather than arbitrary timers).
P.S. Regarding your statements on Lanier . . . are you saying that without it, we’d have plenty of water? If its main purpose it to send water to downstream interests, does that divert water that we’d otherwise have to use here? I’m not that knowledgeable on Lanier.
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:48 pm
I’m all for paying higher price for using more water. It will solve problems very quickly. I like to wash my car by hand anyway, it is just a matter doing it at my apartment or driving to a self service facility. I can conserve more on other daily usage or I will pay for my behavior.
But I’m sure there is some regulation on how much water price can go up, because it is a necessity in life and if it fluctuate like gas everything will soon fluctuate with it as well. It is also hard to make exemption on regulation…Anyway I really don’t know if there is a solution to this drought other than waiting.
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:45 am
Over the past year was have touched on a lot of these issues before. Atlanta has long neglected repairing it’s water pipes so that something like 20% is wasted from leaking pipes. Atlanta is spending a lot now. There was also a bill that required low flow toilets to be installed before a house could be sold but this was shot down last year durring the drought. I think they did pass that later only because of the public outcry. Of course new homes already have to meet that code for low flow toilets. And you should know about these issues if you bothered to read the newspaper.
There is a huge difference between 2000 gallons a month and 3000 a month. 2000 gallons is 66 gallons a day and 3000 is 100 gallons a day. 66 gallons is very low and 100 is about average depending on the size of your household. Then you have to compare Atlanta to other cities out west who have simular drought conditions and Atlanta has a lot of room for improvement.
The real problem here may have been that GA was denied building another dam. GA also hasn’t considered expanding their resevoir capacity until last year.
I also thought that nuclear reactors only used water for cooling and returned most of it to the river? Some is disipated as steam but is it 10 times the amought of Atlanta’s real usage or are you considering only 10% of the cities use, because the city returns 90% as treated, and also not including all the subburbs that don’t return any, and all the leaking pipes?
It’s a shame that these states can’t come together and reach an agreement. But when GA and Atlanta don’t want to accept responsibilty for their own inadequate standards for maintaining their infrastructure and also irresponsible water use and treatement for irresponsilble development, they souldn’t expect someone else to pay for it either.
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:07 am
“Atlanta has long neglected repairing it’s water pipes so that something like 20% is wasted from leaking pipes.”
I’ve thought I’d read somewhere this is one of the Top 10 infrastructure problems in the U.S.
I think Huckabee had it right when he said one way to help the economy was to pump some money into public works projects, which not only helped the infrastructure, but used American steel, concrete, labor, etc.
“But I’m sure there is some regulation on how much water price can go up, because it is a necessity in life . . . ”
That’s why you have a tiered system. Basic water needs can/should always be met with cheap water. It’s only the excess that would be priced higher. And, as soon as we do any type of tiering, folks will get the message and start conserving even if they are at/below the basic rate (just like they do now for electricity).
The tiered pricing system (I think they do it in Roswell and other communities) is not that Draconian. It’s easy, common sense and would work. The extra money generated could be used to water-related efforts (like wells?).
November 4th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
johnc, our house in unincorporated Cobb County is 21 years old, and the entire subdivision was built with city (well, county) water and sewer. Also, the older (1950’s) brick house in Smyrna that we rented when we first moved to Atlanta was on both city water and sewer. I don’t know how common septic systems are in the Atlanta metro, but I don’t think they’re all that common in Cobb County…? Also, FWIW, the house we purchased in 2004 already had low-flow toilets with 2-stage flushing, and I think that’s a very common thing to see these days even in somewhat older houses.
As for building reservoirs — The Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority which supplies our area of the Atlanta metro has just opened a new one at Hickory Log Creek, and it has been making various improvements to its water system (adding new sources such as Lake Allatoona) since it was formed in 1953. Not all of the metro area has been purely reactive on this issue, and I think we would have seen a LOT more action except for the fact that many planned projects were shot down in court by downstream interests. The northern half of Georgia has a long history of projects being proposed and then opposed by folks out of state.
No amount of planning on good intentions will work if the folks downstream want to preserve the status quo at all costs.
Water We Waiting For? — Cobb County has a tiered pricing structure even for residential users. I can’t speak for other counties. It isn’t that big a deal, and I only hit it when running the sprinkler system (something that I’ve not been able to do for two years now).
I can’t speak for the City of Atlanta, but I think many of the western suburbs could have largely sustained themselves on sources outside of the Lanier/Chattahoochie basin (Lake Lanier, etc). if Lake Lanier had not been built, but that’s pure speculation on my part.
November 4th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
johnc, there is a large difference between 2000 and 3000 gallons (50%), but the Cobb County billing system only breaks it down by the thousand, which was my point. You can’t really tell within that range where you are, only when you cross a 1000-gallon boundary.
Here’s what a typical bill looks like:
http://water.cobbcountyga.gov/images/new%20bill.pdf
FWIW, even a slowly leaking toilet can lose 3000 gallons in a month. I’ve had that happen in a guestroom toilet that isn’t normally used (so we didn’t see or hear the water running).
Also, running a sprinkler system once a week for 30 minutes can use 10000+ gallons over a month’s time. Easily. It depends on water flow, the number of zones, the number of sprinklers in each zone, etc. I’m not at home so I can’t get to my billing history, but our normal $25 water bill runs well over $100 if I run the sprinklers more than once in a given month. So people do pay for that privilege … when it’s legal, anyway.
November 6th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Prootwadl, I understood that your bill only broke down to the 1000. I was saying that’s a huge difference beteween 2000 and 3000. I didn’t realize a sprinkler could use that much water. I live in a cul de sac so the front yard is really small and I rarely water the back.
I planted about 10 shrubs and 4 palm trees so our usage was up in September to over 100 gallons a day.
I read somewhere that there were one million septic tanks in the Atlanta area.
I don’t think you can blame all your problems on down stream interest. I think Atlanta needs to focus more on solving it’s water shortage instead of blaming everyone else.
I appreciate a lot of your points though. I just think it’s sad that some basic agreements can’t be made with a simple problem like this. God had given you nice clean water and you can’t reach an agreement on how to share it without distroying the environment?
Try dealing with hurricanes and earth quakes. You would not believe how much wind insurance cost and all the extra building code requirements. It’s at least $5000 a year extra just to deal with hurricanes. Yet, we can improve our planning and building requirements to deal with a 150 mph hurricane. It’s called a Fortified Home that qualifies for a discount and is designed to withstated a 150 mph. Guess who pays for this?
Just flood insuracne can cost $4,000. So, if we have to plan for natural disasters, why shouldn’t Atlanta plan for basic water services, instead of blaming everyone else?
November 7th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Yeah, in-ground sprinkler systems can use a lot of water. Especially older ones with high-flow heads, though you shouldn’t have to run those as often (I’ve always heard that a few lengthy waterings were better than lots of small ones, anyway). Our lawn isn’t that large, either — it’s 0.42 acres, but over 1/3 of it is natural wooded area.
I know it isn’t just downstream folks wasting water, but I know that I find it rather annoying to hear everyone say that Atlanta is responsible for all of the Lake Lanier-related water shortages when there’s a single nuclear power plant located far downstream which requires *so* much more water than all of Atlanta all by itself … and *it* gets totally ignored by the people who are dissing Atlanta. And some of them probably get power from that antiquated plant.
We do plan of water, BTW. See my comments about CCMWA above. The City of Atlanta itself might not be, but they have so many organizational issues right now it’s a wonder the city doesn’t implode because of the low IQs and corruption running rampant among its elected officials…
I don’t want to deal with hurricanes and earthquakes. That’s why I made a conscious decision to not move to such areas.
November 8th, 2008 at 12:46 am
hey, I really like you guys. But, honestly you all are going to have to start treating droughts like natural disasters. I think I’m really preaching to the choir here because anyone who reads this is already someone who is proactive, but I have to take issue with the concept that down stream interest somehow taking your share of the water. I’ve pointed out several issues where IBT are being made simply to make more development as profitable as possible. You can say “oh my yard isn’t that big” buy you are just ignoring the fact that your own city is being irresponsible and not planning for droughts.
I’m still not getting this claim that a nuclear plant actually uses more water than the city of Atlanta? The nuclear pant returns the water. Yes, it needs a lot of water but doesn’t actually consume this water.
Myself, I’m sick of reading these articles that are hoping for a hurricane to strike the South East so Atlanta can get more rain. You people don’t give a crap about anyone but yourself. Your thinking is corrupted. You constantly blame everyone else for your own problem. The only concept you can grasp is blaming someone else and trying to take soemthing from someone else. Accepting any responsibilty? Nope. Atalata is the victim?
In the end, it’s your own web you weave when it’s deception and lies you lead.
Are you alone? No.
But Atlanta philosophy and North Georgia politics is much different than what I’m used to.
That’s really the way I feel right now.
You all are a bunch of clowns and whiners.
November 9th, 2008 at 1:13 am
The Atlanta metro returns most of its water, to, on the order of 90-95%. But that isn’t the point.
The point is that the power plant has a MINIMUM FLOW requirement (water taken out and put back) which is roughly 10 times that of the Atlanta metro area.
Even if the metro area didn’t put anything back, its usage would require only a fraction of the total water release that we were seeing many days last year from the Lake Lanier reservoir. Atlanta was emphatically not the reason for those water releases, it was downstream users like the power plant.
Lake Lanier releases are made to meet downstream minimum flow requirements. Net usage isn’t important from that perspective, it’s gross usage, and the single largest gross user determines the minimum flow.
Let’s put it in simple terms … say in terms of people eating beans.
First, assume that the Mr. Atlanta requires 10 beans a day in order to survive. Thus, Lake Lanier has to release a minimum of 10 beans per day in order to meet Mr. Atlanta’s needs.
Let’s also assume that Mr. Atlanta eats those 10 beans but then poops 9 beans back into the river. That reflects the approximate net water usage for the entire Atlanta metro.
That means that even though Mr Atlanta has a need for 10 beans per day, the net impact of Mr. Atlanta’s usage is 1 bean. 9 beans get through and are available for use downstream. Thus, Atlanta is responsible for a 10 bean/day flow from the lake, but 9 beans/day continues to flow downstream.
If another Atlanta existed downstream, the lake would only have to release 11 beans/day to meet the needs of both, at least in this simplistic scenario.
Now, picture a larger person downstream (let’s call him Mr. OldNuke) who requires 100 beans per day to survive. In order for him to live, Lake Lanier has to release 100 beans every day.
To meet OldNuke’s needs, Lanier actually has to release 101 beans per day. Why? Because Mr. Atlanta eats 10 at the top and poops 9, resulting in a net loss of 1 bean. When Mr. Atlanta does his thing, 100 beans/day are available for Mr. OldNuke to eat.
Regardless of whether or not Mr. OldNuke poops zero beans or 100 back into the river, he still needs his 100 bean/day diet. So while Mr. Atlanta is wasteful in his own right, his wastefulness only accounts for … at most … 10 of the 101 beans that get released every day that Lake Lanier has to release.
Atlanta = 10
OldNuke = 91
Does that make sense?
Of course, the system is actually far more complex than that — other sizable reservoirs exist downstream from Lanier, and those act as buffers in their own right, so those impact the flow requirements from Lanier. Also, in addition, we have folks on the far end (in Florida) who apparently have a need to maintain a certain water level for their environmental needs (and the needs of the fishing industry that depends on that environment). But the above might serve to illustrate the relative impact on the total system of the two entities in question (Atlanta and the plant).
Sorry for being so long.
November 9th, 2008 at 1:15 am
If someone would locate the estimated actual usage numbers for Atlanta and for the power plant in question, perhaps it would assist johnc in understanding that what I’m talking about isn’t fiction.
Older nuclear power plants require a TREMENDOUS amount of water to use as coolant. A much larger amount than is used by the City of Atlanta every day.
If you can’t accept documented reality, JohnC, that really isn’t my problem.
November 9th, 2008 at 8:46 am
“I’ve always heard that a few lengthy waterings were better than lots of small ones, anyway”
Yes, that’s true, because if you want deep enough roots, they need to go down after water that’s about 1″ below the soil.
If you water your lawn half an inch three times per week (1.5″ per week), your roots will still only grow half an inch.
If you only give your lawn one inch of water, once per week (1″ per week), your lawn will actually be better for it. And you only need about 1″ of watering per week to sustain a lawn.
That’s why I think one of the results of this drought could be the affordability of certain technologies, like in-ground water sensors. You put them an inch below the surface, and if the ground is moist at the depth, your sprinkler doesn’t go on.
There are sensors that won’t allow your watering system to go on if it’s raining. Maybe those will become mandatory (and therefore cheaper).
November 29th, 2008 at 1:59 am
This might be funny if so many people and so much of the natural world weren’t going to be hurt so badly. Both Georgia and Florida have been careening towards this disaster since they adopted the carpetbagger mentality of developing as much and as fast as ever they could.
It’s not like y’all weren’t warned.
Well, you’ve got too many people, you’re running out of water, and global warming is about to bite you very hard indeed. The pain is just starting, and taking quick showers isn’t going to solve your problems.
Have fun y’all.