Atlanta Water Shortage

Last week the Atlanta Journal Constitution ran an article on the creation of 10 new water councils all throughout the state. Each council will be made up of “farmers, government officials, businessmen and others” and will be tasked with determining how to divide rivers, lakes and underground aquifers.

Gov. Sonny Perdue, responsible for more than half the appointments, said in a statement that those chosen are “a diverse group of Georgians” who will “focus on water resource issues while also addressing the state’s economic needs.”

But leaders of the Georgia Water Coalition, a statewide group of environmental and civic organizations that advocates for clean water, immediately criticized the absence of environmentalists among the appointees.

Only one of the state’s eight Riverkeepers, Satilla Riverkeeper Gordon Rogers, was named to a council. Rogers will serve on the Suwanne-Satilla regional council in southeast Georgia.

To read the entire article click HERE.

I was reading the Wall Street Journal on my flight into Atlanta late Tuesday night to visit relatives and saw that Georgia had made the front page of the WSJ. The article talks about Sonny Perdue’s $19 million dollar plan to make the state one of the most popular fishing destinations in the country.

The administration recently began construction on a $14 million dollar “Go Fish Georgia Center,” featuring a fish hatchery, visitor’s center, and public fishing ponds about 12 miles from Mr. Perdue’s hometown of Bonaire. The 15,000 square-foot building will feature interactive exhibits, including fishing simulators where visitors in a fake boat can struggle against computer controlled fish.

This sounds like quite a controversial plan given the timing of this - seems to me that it would take quite a bit for Georgia to become the fishing capital of the US. Perdue is quoted as saying that, “even if lakes stay low that will make it easier to get the fish.” Sonny also told reporters, “Would you rather catch a big fish in your bathtub, or in your swimming pool?”

How many of you are adhering to the water restriction rules as set forth in bill 1281? I’ve highlighted the rules below as a refresher. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that many of you are following even tighter restrictions, it’s a great way to save a few bucks in this tough economy if you can limit your water bill.

- No sprinklers. Use a hand-held garden hose with an automatic shut-off only. Only one hose at a time.
- Water three days a week: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays for houses with odd-numbered addresses and Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays for houses with even-numbered addresses.
- Water between midnight and 10 a.m.
- Water for 25 minutes only.
- More liberal rules for new landscaping allow sprinklers for ten weeks after planting new grass, shrubs, trees and flowers, on the three-day schedule and limited hours.
- To use the more lenient rules, homeowners must be certified through an on-line course given by the Georgia Urban Agriculture Council at www.urbanagcouncil.com. Certification is also available from each county’s extension agent.

The state of Georgia had been hoping to overturn a ruling that invalidated a 2003 agreement that let Georgia take extra water from Lake Lanier, but an overruling on that court decision now appears to be unlikely.

Specifically, as per 11Alive:

The Justice Department has recommended that the high court not take up the case, maintaining in a brief filed last week that Georgia’s arguments are flawed and that the issue is not significant enough to merit Supreme Court attention.

While I’m not sure which way it should go, I’m surprised they call it “not significant enough”.  With the lake quickly approaching new record low levels, it certainly seems like it’d be an important ruling.

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.

11Alive has a nice story today about some of the other issues facing Florida if the water continues to dwindle.  Among other things, they say:

Branch said recreational fishing businesses in his county rely on the Apalachicola River, but boats are running aground in the middle of it. He said the lower flows have affected groundwater levels to the point where area farmers are having a harder time irrigating crops.

I’m rather torn about all of this.  While human lives are obviously more important, things don’t appear to be getting critical — at least not yet.  Do we throw away jobs in Florida just in case things keep getting worse up here, or do we wait until things are in a more critical state?  What do you think?

According to an article on 11Alive, we might be looking at tighter water restrictions next month.  Rain has been quite sparce this month, and Lake Lanier has dropped nearly a foot.

The state EPD director, Carol Couch, will make a decision next month.

What do you think she should do?  Why?

(Note: This is a guest post by Rich S.)

On June 2nd, the U.S. fish and wildlife service gave their blessing to the Corps of Engineers Revised Interim Operating Plan (PDF).

So for the foreseeable future, this plan defines how decisions will be made concerning water retention in the ACF system including Lake Lanier.  This plan is a modification of the operating plan the corps has been using for the last several years.  The modifications are intended to favor retention or storage in the reservoirs of the ACF above the old plan which clearly released too much water during the recent drought.

I was surprised to see that the plan doesn’t really address Lanier or any of the other lakes individually, but mainly addresses the release from Jim Woodruff dam because of course everything that isn’t released from that Dam is held in the five reservoirs of the ACF.

Decisions about how much water is to be released vs. stored are based on three factors: Composite action zone, season, and inflow.

The composite action zone is similar to the one you are likely familiar with from this lake Lanier forecast chart - http://water.sam.usace.army.mil/lanfc.htm

The composite chart adds the storage from all five reservoirs and treats it as a sum of the entire system.  The action zones are similar with zone one being relatively good and zone four being very low water levels.  They also added a fifth zone that they call the “drought zone”.

Release levels vary by three seasons: spawning season (March-May); non-spawning season (June-November); and winter (December-February).  Regardless of the season, when the composite level reaches zone four, releases from Woodruff dam are reduced to 5000 cf/s.  Any inflow above that level can be retained as storage.  Likewise, when the composite level reaches the drought zone, releases are reduced to 4500 cf/s.

During the winter period, releases are reduced to 5000 cf/s regardless of the composite zone (except 4500 cf/s in the drought zone).  All additional inflow is stored.

Aside from the above situations, releases from Woodruff dam are based on season, zone, and inflow with some portion of any inflow above 8000 cf/s  retained for storage.

Compared to the old plan, this one lets us release a little less water when times are bad, and store a little more of the excess when times are good.  It’s not going to solve all of our problems, but it may actually be sustainable over time, which the old plan clearly proved not to be.

Rich

Well, sort of.  An interesting side effect of potentially moving the Georgia-Tennessee line is that a few towns in southern Tennessee would have to stop selling alcohol.  Copperhill, TN has some bars, but would suddenly find themselves located in Fannin County, GA if the state line were moved.  Fannin County is dry and doesn’t permit alcohol sales.

The state line is even a bit of a tourist attraction.  Just across the state line from Copperhill is McCaysville, GA.  The town has bright blue dashes all over the place to show the jagged state line — even running through buildings, streets and bars.

All of that being said, moving the state line is very unlikely.  As the article points out:

Any border change would likely require an act of Congress or a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, so it’s highly unlikely the state lines would actually move.

This also goes to show just how much thought would need to go into such a major decision — there are a lot of small things that would be affected as well.

The city of Atlanta wants to tighten their water restrictions, but now has to jump through some hoops.

On May 14, Gov. Perdue signed House Bill 1281, which made it illegal for any local government to override the state’s water restrictions without permission.  The Environmental Protection Division is reviewing the request, along with a request to reduce restrictions in Coweta County.

To clear things up, here are the current restrictions for most of north Georgia:

• No sprinklers. Use a hand-held garden hose with an automatic shut-off only. Only one hose at a time.
• Water three days a week: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays for houses with odd-numbered addresses and Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays for houses with even-numbered addresses.
• Water between midnight and 10 a.m.
• Water for 25 minutes only.
• More liberal rules for new landscaping allow sprinklers for ten weeks after planting new grass, shrubs, trees and flowers, on the three-day schedule and limited hours.
  • To use the more lenient rules, homeowners must be certified through an on-line course given by the Georgia Urban Agriculture Council at www.urbanagcouncil.com. Certification is also available from each county’s extension agent.