Atlanta Water Shortage

As we’ve done for the past few months, here is the updated chart showing the water level of Lake Lanier. I had predicted that the lake would hold steady (or maybe drop), but instead it rose by about a foot over the past month. A foot isn’t much, but it was a surprise boost.

As you can see, we should really start seeing a drop now. I’d love to be wrong again, but I fully expect the lake to drop a few feet before June arrives. As of today, we’re about 11 feet lower than where we were last year, and about 14 feet below full pool.

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.

I appreciate what DeKalb County is trying to do here, but it seems pretty stupid once you dig into it. Starting in a few months, if you buy an older house in DeKalb County and it doesn’t have low-flow toilets, the county won’t hook up water to your house.

The move was praised by most people. From the article:

“This is really a pretty big deal,” said Sally Bethea, executive director of the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper. She said metro Atlanta will face increasing pressure to conserve water as the population grows.

Here’s the catch - DeKalb County gets their water from the Chattahoochee River and returns the wastewater there. The “wasted” water that is flushed down the old toilets goes back into the river and finds its way to Jim Woodruff Dam in Florida. This is where they measure the flow of water coming from Atlanta to determine how much more to release from Lanier. As long as the water makes it back into the river, it’s not depleting the level of the lake. Here is a post from a few weeks ago where we went into more detail about that.

Granted, not 100% of the water makes it back, so this move will save a little bit of water. Some is lost to leaks, some evaporates, etc.  However, given the horrible real estate market we’re in, anything that makes things hard on people trying to sell their house seems like a bad idea. From the article:

Barbara Campbell, president of the DeKalb Association of Realtors, wondered how the county would enforce its mandate on sellers to disclose their old toilets. Selling a house is hard enough, especially in this economy, she said. “When you’re selling your home, I don’t think you’re going to be announcing that.”

I agree.

Two weeks ago, Gov. Perdue announced that watering restrictions would be eased for all of the north Georgia counties currently under the watering ban.   However, it was made clear that local officials could choose whether or not to relax the ban in their areas.

Today, Mayor Shirley Franklin announced that the city of Atlanta would not be easing the restrictions — the current “no watering” rules will stay in effect for a while longer.  However, both public and private swimming pools can be filled immediately and used 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.

Georgia was looking to get an agreement to reallocate some of Lake Lanier’s water from hydropower downstream to water supply for the metro area.  Today, a federal appellate court shot it down.

The change would have given Georgia rights to 65% more water from Lake Lanier, bringing their total to around 25% of the total storage capacity of the lake.  Alabama and Florida fought hard against it, saying “the change would constitute a major operational change, which requires Congressional approval under the Water Supply Act.”

George Sherk, a water law expert, wasn’t kind to Atlanta either — “The logical response for metro Atlanta right now is no new building permits unless the applicant can demonstrate a long-term water supply. But pigs will fly before Atlanta does that.”

Congress could potentially intervene on behalf of Georgia, but Mr. Sherk thinks that is unlikely to happen.  There are a few other routes that the state could take now (appeals, hearings, etc), but it’s unclear what action will be taken next.

According to state regulations (via an article in the AJC), we need to have four consecutive months of “continued improvement” before they can consider downgrading us from the Level 4 drought that we’re currently in.  Under the current restrictions, outdoor pools won’t be allowed to open this summer.

January seemed rather rainy (and snowy), but it was still about 1-1/2 inches below normal.  This means that our next opportunity would be if February, March, April and May all showed improvement, at which point the restrictions could be eased and pools could possibly open.  Interestingly, the AJC claims that good rain in February-May means that July would be the first possible month pools could open.  They also say that if we don’t get rain until March-June, then August would be the first possible month they could open.  They seem to be inserting a fifth month in there.  Am I missing something here, or are they just wrong again?

Despite all of this, Carol Couch of the Environmental Protection Division has the power to grant exemptions.  This means that she could choose to allow all pools to open this summer in spite of the drought.  She plans to have her list of recommendations to Gov. Perdue by today, after which he can decide whether or not to accept her ideas.  I would expect an announcement from him regarding this sometime next week.

As reported by Watercrunch, Georgia’s General Assembly ratified a new statewide water plan.  Some notable pieces:

• 11 water planning districts will be created
• It will be about a year before they’re up and running
• The cost for this effort is estimated around $36 million
• The amended budget includes:
  • $40 million for reservoirs and other needs
  • $500K for upgrades to 20 dams

The Watercrunch blog entry has the full details.

With the session starting today, the drought figures to be a key issue for Georgia’s lawmakers.  This article at 11Alive makes it sound like they’ll be working hard to get something done, which I don’t doubt.  Carol Couch, director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division said “At the end of this session, there will be a water plan.”

The article doesn’t get into too many specific ideas, but here are a few they bring up:

• Build more reservoirs.
• More requirements regarding use of low-flow showers, toilets, etc.
• Target leaks in local water systems.

None of that is new, but it’d be nice to see them actually do something rather than simply continue to talk about it.

Water Crunch has a nice list of the “5 water bills to watch in 2008″.  All of these bills are in Congress right now.

None have a direct, short-term impact on the southeast, but most of them could benefit everyone in the long run.

Check out the full list.