Lake Lanier has three months of water left

[rhoenix]

Lake Sidney Lanier, metro Atlanta's main source of water, has about three months of storage left, according to state and federal officials.

That's three months before there's not enough water for more than 3 million metro Atlantans to take showers, flush their toilets and cook. Three months before there's not enough water in parts of the Chattahoochee River for power plants to make the steam necessary to generate electricity. Three months before part of the river runs dry.

"We've never experienced this situation before," state Environmental Protection Division Director Carol Couch said of the record-breaking drought and fast-falling lake.

In two weeks, Couch plans to give Gov. Sonny Perdue a list of options to further restrict water use by businesses and industries, along with an analysis of potential water savings and estimated job losses. Some exemptions to the state's ban on outdoor watering in north Georgia could end, including those applied to water-dependent businesses such as car washes, pressure washing companies and landscapers. Couch's staff is still working on the details.

She said she fully expects an economic hit if substantial rain doesn't fall soon and the emergency actions are taken.

"There has to be a balance between determining how much water we can conserve against how much lost jobs and lost economy there is," Couch said. "You don't do that lightly."

Landscapers already have suffered. Days after the outdoor ban was ordered Sept. 28, Mary Kay Woodworth of the Urban Agriculture Council trade group said landscapers' phones around the region stopped ringing. "Immediately, employees were laid off. Contracts waiting on signatures — from $3,000 jobs to $150,000 installations — were canceled."

Other heavy water users are considering their options. A Pepsico Inc. plant that produces Gatorade, which is the biggest water user in the city of Atlanta, is figuring out ways to cut down further on its use in the next 30 days. Coca-Cola is waiting to see what restrictions might be imposed at its Atlanta syrup plant, but has already cut back as part of a corporate water conservation plan.

Some water providers are asking big users like manufacturers to voluntarily cut back and are making emergency plans to install equipment to pump water from unprecedented depths of Lanier and the Chattahoochee.

Fate depends on Corps

How bad things could get depends on rain, and the forecast is not promising. October is normally the year's driest month, and climatologists say another dry, warm winter is ahead.

Metro Atlanta's water fate also depends largely on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that owns and operates Buford Dam and the 38,000-acre lake that sits behind it, bordered by Gwinnett, Hall and Forysth Counties. This month, the Corps has released from Lanier more than four times as much water as flows in from the Chattahoochee and other feeder streams. But that's far less than last month, when the Corps released 35 times as much water out of Lanier than flowed in.

More than a billion gallons leave the lake every day, more than twice the amount metro Atlanta uses. Much of it flows past the city into West Point Lake, another federal reservoir near LaGrange, then along the Alabama border and eventually to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.

Pat Stevens, an environmental planner for the Atlanta Regional Commission who regularly keeps tabs on how much water is available for Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb and other metro Atlanta governments, said the Corps' "wastes water unnaturally."

"When you move into a drought like we've moved into, you'll drain the system," Stevens said.

The Corps' water releases are based on two key requirements: the minimum flow needed to operate Plant Scholtz, Gulf Power's small coal-fired facility just below Lake Seminole, and federal mandates to protect two mussel species in a Florida river.

If the Chattahoochee were undammed and running freely, Mother Nature would be providing only half the water the Corps is sending, Corps officials have said.

Val Perry Jr., a homeowner and officer of the Lake Lanier Association, told the Corps last week that "If there were no dams at all, some mussels would die and [the species would] not become extinct. ... Does a couple of mussels trump 5 million people? What I hear from the Corps is that the answer to that is yes."

Together with Lanier, four other federal lakes on the Chattahoochee combine to send water toward the Apalachicola River in Florida, which is formed by the waters of Georgia's Chattahoochee and Flint rivers. But no one knows whether the mussels — the endangered fat threeridge and threatened purple bankclimber — actually need the 3 billion gallons they get every day.

"The real big question is how low can you go to not allow the species to go down the slippery slope of extinction?" said Sandra Tucker, a field supervisor with the wildlife service in Georgia. "Those are things we just really don't know."

But even if the mussels could survive with less water, the coal plant could not, said Lynn Erickson, a Gulf Power spokeswoman. The plant, which opened in 1953 and produces enough electricity to power as many as 19,000 homes, had to lower its water withdrawal pipe on the Apalachicola River about 25 years ago. To go lower probably wouldn't be cost effective, Erickson said.

"This is a small plant in the whole scheme of things," Erickson said. "But it's a critical piece of the whole system." It ensures reliability for an entire region that includes Tallahassee, southeast Alabama and southwest Georgia.

State and regional representatives, including Couch and Georgia's congressional delegation, have been asking the Corps to reconsider its releases for the power plant and the mussels for more than a year. So far, the answer has been no.

"We are required to maintain [the minimum flow]," said Corps spokeswoman Lisa Coghlan. "As we march on, we're going to seriously be looking at our emergency operations and how we provide relief."

The Corps last month predicted Lanier, in the worst-case scenario, could drop another 19 feet by the end of the year to set a new historic low that would threaten metro Atlanta's drinking supply sometime next year.

Mark Crisp, a water expert in Atlanta with the national consulting firm C.H. Guernsey & Co., has said for years that metro Atlanta is asking too much from Lanier. Most of the region's population — and one-third of the state's population — relyon the smallest river basin in the Georgia. In fact, it's the largest metropolitan region in the country depending on a river so small.

As Couch put it, "All our eggs are in one basket."

Now Crisp's warnings seem even more prescient. The active storm season that rescued the state during the last drought — from 1998 to 2002 — is unlikely.

"We're already on the downside of the hurricane season so that hope and a prayer has pretty much gone away," said Crisp, whose clients include customers buying electricity generated at Lanier's Buford Dam. "At this point, as bad as it has gotten, we've got to start thinking about the doomsday, at least saying to each other, 'How are we going to handle it if it comes?'"

Stevens, the ARC's environmental planner, said she "doesn't even want to think about" the fallout if Lanier drops to 31 feet below its full level.

Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said the state has fought in the tri-state legal water wars and has restricted outdoor watering, with the worst-case scenario in mind.

"The Level 4 declaration is just the latest step in asking Georgians to do their part to conserve as much of our existing resources as possible."

If that's not enough, the first sign of trouble for metro Atlantans could be lowered water pressure, as the water systems strain to pull water out of a dwindling river and lake.

Corps acknowledged mistake

Compounding this year's problem was a huge mistake by the Corps in 2006.

That spring, just as the drought was beginning, the Corps released billions of gallons of additional water from Lanier to the Apalachicola River, for the spawning season of the threatened Gulf sturgeon. So few of the prehistoric fish remain that a federal biologist in Florida has estimated fewer than 10 females are able to spawn in any given year.

The Corps discovered it had relied on a faulty gauge to measure Lanier's level — overestimating the amount of water left in the lake by nearly 2 feet. That meant the Corps had accidentally released 22 billion gallons of water: enough to supply metro Atlanta's needs for about a month and a half.

EPD Director Couch first sent out a warning in June of last year that metro Atlanta's drinking water supply was in jeopardy, thanks to the Corps' releases, which she said were twice the amount needed for the threatened fish. The Corps has since acknowledged it released more water than needed.

That same month, the state sued the Corps, seeking to reduce the amount of water headed across the border to Florida. A flurry of hearings last summer failed to resolve the matter. Florida and Alabama also have complaints about the Corps' management of the Chattahoochee River. A 17-year legal battle is wending its way through the federal courts.

But, even if the courts decide to reduce the releases, and the region is deluged with rain, that may only delay the inevitable, some say, because metro Atlanta is outgrowing its water sources.

'Our culture has to change'

An $8 million water plan for metro Atlanta completed in 2003 is based on the generally accepted assumption that this region can remove an average of 705 million gallons of water a day from Lanier and the upper Chattahoochee. But state officials have long thought that the area won't reach that level of water use until 2030.

Metro Atlanta is already more than halfway there, and over the next 25 years another 1.6 million people are expected to share the water.

And the original assumption was based on some major "ifs:" if additional reservoirs are built; if aggressive conservation measures are enacted; if additional water is pumped from Lake Allatoona to the Chattahoochee basin; if metro Atlanta is allowed to use more of the water in Lanier instead of sending it downstream to Alabama and Florida.

Given the current drought, those underlying assumptions are suspect.

Crisp now estimates metro Atlanta could reach its water limit as early as 2018, assuming continued growth in population.

"Our culture has to change," said Crisp, who lives on Allatoona, which has dropped to levels not often seen at this time of year. "We have been a water-rich region all of our lives, never having to worry about water. ... The attention that is paid to water goes away as soon as we start having rain again.

"We're going to have another drought after this one," he said. "When we can't guess, but we can be assured we'll have another drought that's actually worse than this one. ... With that in mind, our planners have to start looking at this in terms of how many more families, how many more businesses, how many more gallons of water can we allocate out of the Chattahoochee River."

Posted without comment, apart from this one. Thoughts?

[Winston Blake]

Welcome to Australia. Water restrictions have been an ordinary part of life for years. I can't remember when there wasn't a drought.

[Aaron]

I spent my childhood in the Lower Mainland of BC, we had watering restrictions for as long as I could remember. Despite the frequent rainfall it was required to preserve the Capilano Watershed so we'd have enough drinking water to last the summer. Because most of our water came from the melting snowpack.

Strangely enough now that I live in the Ottawa Valley there's no watering restrictions despite it's far more arid climate, I guess the Ottawa River provides enough fresh water for what ever you need.

[Dartzap]

How bizarre. We had hose pipe bans in certain parts of the country a few years ago, but due to the nature of this Island, the reservoirs all filled up again fairly quickly. once we hit the winter.

[Mayabird]

One of the predictions of global warming that I've seen is that the southern U.S. (including, obviously Georgia) will start to dry up, going from the current mixed forests into savanna. Less rain falling, and hotter temperatures to evaporate moisture more quickly. The summer was absolutely brutal, no rain for weeks (when summer is supposed to be pretty rainy) and 100+ degree temperatures every day. No rain, high evaporation. That whole Corp screwup didn't help the situation either.

Also, before I fled the state, I was reading some AJC editorials/forum posts where spoiled stupid suburbanites were openly bragging about ignoring the water bans because they wanted to go swimming and keep their lawns pretty. I suppose they also consider it their right to keep their damn SUVs pretty and freshly washed too. Fuck them all. I'm so glad to have left.

[Adrian Laguna]

Also, before I fled the state, I was reading some AJC editorials/forum posts where spoiled stupid suburbanites were openly bragging about ignoring the water bans because they wanted to go swimming and keep their lawns pretty. I suppose they also consider it their right to keep their damn SUVs pretty and freshly washed too. Fuck them all. I'm so glad to have left.

I was thinking a pipe-line from the Great Lakes could be used to bring fresh water to the South East US, but if they're going to be selfish assholes with their dihydrogen monoxide then they can go fuck themselves.

[J]

I was thinking a pipe-line from the Great Lakes could be used to bring fresh water to the South East US, but if they're going to be selfish assholes with their dihydrogen monoxide then they can go fuck themselves.

There's a lot of water in the Great Lakes but it's far from limitless, water levels have already dropped nearly a metre in some places during my lifetime.

[Spin Echo]

Also, before I fled the state, I was reading some AJC editorials/forum posts where spoiled stupid suburbanites were openly bragging about ignoring the water bans because they wanted to go swimming and keep their lawns pretty. I suppose they also consider it their right to keep their damn SUVs pretty and freshly washed too. Fuck them all. I'm so glad to have left.

I was thinking a pipe-line from the Great Lakes could be used to bring fresh water to the South East US, but if they're going to be selfish assholes with their dihydrogen monoxide then they can go fuck themselves.

You realise the Great Lakes are shrinking too?

[J]

Water can be just like oil;

"we're running low on water"
"well, those bastards over there have tons of water..."
"ok, let's go take their damn water!"

[The Duchess of Zeon]

If the NIMBYs would let us build immense banks of nuclear reactors which are separated from the grid and serve simply to power enormous desalination plants, this problem would be solved rapidly. It is not like we're going to be reducing the depth of the ocean any time soon, quite the contrary actually...

[Adrian Laguna]

If the NIMBYs would let us build immense banks of nuclear reactors which are separated from the grid and serve simply to power enormous desalination plants, this problem would be solved rapidly.

I think it would be possible to run a desalination operation, albeit a small one, just from the normal running of a nuclear powers station that supplies the gird. It wouldn't really be substitute to a dedicated desalination plant powered by its own set of reactors, but rather a way to try and get more energy efficiency out of the power stations that we need to feed the grid anyway.

Basically my idea is to use the cooling part of the process. I'm no engineer, so I don't know if it actually increases energy efficiency, but at first glance it does, seeing as all that steam is typically just released into the environment.

[Knife]

Step one: golf courses in arid regions must die.

Step two: the idea that every house needs a golf course looking yard must die.


Seriously, the last few years there's been a drought in the intermountain west and yet while the citizens get all sorts of messages about conserving water and only watering your lawns at dusk/dawn, you can drive past the local golf couse at noon and see them being watered.

Hell, locally some woman got roughed up by police after an argument stemming from the cops issuing her a ticket for an unkept lawn (violation of an ordinace to upkeep property) and she replied with wanting to conserve water durring the summer. (four or five months of 90-105 degrees F).

Ontop of all that, Las Vegas and California (southern) are depleteing the Coloradro river soooooooooooooooo fucking much water rights are a huge issue. Hell power is an issue since the Zion sells most of it's power to Cali.

Anyway, it'll be interesting in the next five to ten years.

[Adrian Laguna]

Step two: the idea that every house needs a golf course looking yard must die.

I have a relative who lives in Colorado Springs. Her neighborhood is pretty upscale (big houses, nice cars), and it's on a forested hill. Almost nobody has golf course lawns. A lot of people do have some obviously cultivated lawns, but they're usually flowers and plants, nut just plain grass. Others just let nature take its course, and allow all sorts of weeds and wild flowers to grow as they will. It actually looks very pretty as it meshes fairly well with the forested areas, while an artificial carpet of grass would look weird.

[Darth Wong]

Also, before I fled the state, I was reading some AJC editorials/forum posts where spoiled stupid suburbanites were openly bragging about ignoring the water bans because they wanted to go swimming and keep their lawns pretty. I suppose they also consider it their right to keep their damn SUVs pretty and freshly washed too. Fuck them all. I'm so glad to have left.

I was thinking a pipe-line from the Great Lakes could be used to bring fresh water to the South East US, but if they're going to be selfish assholes with their dihydrogen monoxide then they can go fuck themselves.

Ah yes, the solution to unsustainable development and wasteful use of resources: steal it from someone else and accuse them of being "selfish" if they don't let you! You're a fucking idiot.

[Vympel]

In Sydney we've been suffering water shortages for the past few years - the overwhelming majority of Sydneysiders have fully complied with all the water conservation measures put in place - the problem is the water usage by businesses/industry is wiping out all the big savings made as a result. Fuckers.

[Lord MJ]

Also, before I fled the state, I was reading some AJC editorials/forum posts where spoiled stupid suburbanites were openly bragging about ignoring the water bans because they wanted to go swimming and keep their lawns pretty. I suppose they also consider it their right to keep their damn SUVs pretty and freshly washed too. Fuck them all. I'm so glad to have left.

I was thinking a pipe-line from the Great Lakes could be used to bring fresh water to the South East US, but if they're going to be selfish assholes with their dihydrogen monoxide then they can go fuck themselves.

Ah yes, the solution to unsustainable development and wasteful use of resources: steal it from someone else and accuse them of being "selfish" if they don't let you! You're a fucking idiot.

I think you have it confused. He was accusing the Georgia residents of being selfish, not the people from the Great lakes regions.

I was thinking a pipe-line from the Great Lakes could be used to bring fresh water to the South East US, but if the southerners are going to be selfish assholes with their dihydrogen monoxide then they can go fuck themselves.

Is what I think he meant to say.

[Darth Wong]

If that's the case, then I guess I owe AL a partial apology. The idea of piping water from the Great Lakes down to the Confederacy still strikes me as absolute bullshit.

[Lord MJ]

Well Georgia has gotten pretty strict on the watering ban now, so I don't think there is much worry of people going off and wasting water.

It's pretty scary that there is the chance that we will run out of water. I think in that scenario some mechanism of getting water to Georgia at least temporarily will be needed.

On a side note, I wonder what it will take to finally get people to realize that climate change is real. And that to confront it we need immediate drastic measures, no long term 5-20 year plan stuff. Sure it will greatly harm our economy (say by decreeing cut emissions x% in 2 years or you can't do business) in the short term, but in the long term, avoiding the tipping point would greatly offset said harm from a utilitarian perspective.

[Darth Wong]

On a side note, I wonder what it will take to finally get people to realize that climate change is real. And that to confront it we need immediate drastic measures, no long term 5-20 year plan stuff. Sure it will greatly harm our economy (say by decreeing cut emissions x% in 2 years or you can't do business) in the short term, but in the long term, avoiding the tipping point would greatly offset said harm from a utilitarian perspective.

The problem is that people are visualizing this as a sports car hurtling toward a concrete barrier. First they ask if the barrier is nothing but a mirage. Then, as they get closer, they ask if it's possible to jump over the barrier. Then, as they get even closer, they start wondering if they should apply the brakes soon. Then, as they get even closer, they realize that it's too late to apply the brakes. Why? Because they're not driving a sports car. They're driving a fucking ocean liner, and those things don't stop on a dime.

In other words, it's too late. The RMS Titanic is bearing down on that iceberg and you could reverse the engines or steer all you like, but this bitch is still going down. At this point it's no longer a question of avoiding the iceberg; it's a question of making sure you've got a lifeboat picked out.

[Chardok]

Why do they get down to THREE FUCKING MONTHS OF WATER LEFT before there's a news article on it? THREE MONTHS isn't enough time to do...well, anything. What the hell happens after three months if there's no rain?

I guess they could read a book to stay awake, and enrich their lives away, but it's a great escape.

Idiots.

[Darth Wong]

Why do they get down to THREE FUCKING MONTHS OF WATER LEFT before there's a news article on it? THREE MONTHS isn't enough time to do...well, anything. What the hell happens after three months if there's no rain?

I guess they could read a book to stay awake, and enrich their lives away, but it's a great escape.

Idiots.

It's only three months at current usage levels. If they drastically cut back on their water waste, they could extend that considerably. And of course, renewed rains could help too, although there's no guarantee of those. The problem is that I suspect they won't cut back until they're already out. Sort of like the drunk driver who doesn't hit the brakes until he's already past the point of no return.

[Chardok]

Why do they get down to THREE FUCKING MONTHS OF WATER LEFT before there's a news article on it? THREE MONTHS isn't enough time to do...well, anything. What the hell happens after three months if there's no rain?

I guess they could read a book to stay awake, and enrich their lives away, but it's a great escape.

Idiots.

It's only three months at current usage levels. If they drastically cut back on their water waste, they could extend that considerably. And of course, renewed rains could help too, although there's no guarantee of those.

Still, it's distressing to know that it's not a crisis until it gets to this point. just...Okay, well, it's distressing to me.

[Covenant]

I live within 30 minutes of the Lake, but we've still gone on water rationing in droughts before. Just because there's water available doesn't mean you should just it like a goddamn madman. Seems that the folks down there are about to realize this, and if they want to draw a pike from anywhere, draw it from the ocean, and cough up the Nukes to get some salt-reducers going.

[hongi]

In Sydney we've been suffering water shortages for the past few years - the overwhelming majority of Sydneysiders have fully complied with all the water conservation measures put in place - the problem is the water usage by businesses/industry is wiping out all the big savings made as a result. Fuckers.

Farming/Agriculture takes a big chunk of the water. There's some discussion about cutting back the growth of water-intensive crops like cotton in favour of something that is more sensible in one of the driest continents on Earth.

[Natorgator]

I've heard a lot of people talking about this, so I think people are going to comply than they might have before. Except that when I was out in Atlanta last night, I saw an automatic sprinkler system running in front of some restaurants.

In any case, what are everyone's thoughts on lowering the water level enough to conserve but to the point where the mussels might die? Is it worth it to let the whole region dry up just so some river animals have enough water level? It seems absurd to me.