Water Wars Continue
You may have had heard two pieces of news regarding the drought, and the Atlanta area’s ability to take water from Lake Lanier. The first bit of news is that the metro area has managed to reduce its water use by 20% in June, compared to June 2007. In Gwinnett, recent usage amounts to 77 million gallons per day, compared to 88 MGD a year ago.
While the reduced use probably mostly comes from the outdoor watering ban imposed last fall and modified this spring, it’s still remarkable that Georgians have responded to the crisis as well as they have. Another article I read says that it took residents of Cary, NC 11 years to reduce consumption by 15% in 11 years, and Tampa Bay reduced consumption by 26% in 12 years.
Realistically, though, a more or less total watering ban isn’t going to be a long-term solution to conserving water, unless we want to sacrifice the quality of life afforded by trees, grass and landscaping. More efficient toilets and appliances, less waste through leaky pipes and other techniques will need to be employed to reduce consumption while allowing conservative outdoor use, and that indeed could take years to complete.
The other major story in the news is a promise by a Federal judge that he will decide if Georgia (and the Atlanta area in particular) has the right to withdraw water from Lake Lanier. He views that question as central to coming up with answers to the ongoing water wars between Alabama, Florida and Georgia.
Many people, upon hearing of this think, “What are we going to do, go without water, since we can’t get it from the lake?” Actually, the reality is different. The real question is whether Atlanta has the right to use Lake Lanier as a storage area for future withdrawals from the Chattahoochee river. Atlanta, like many other cities along the Chattahoochee, has the right to take water from the river, and that’s not being questioned. The issue is whether Lake Lanier can be used as a reservoir to supply sufficient water in times of drought.
The argument is that Congress authorized the construction of Buford Dam and the lake for purposes of flood control, hydroelectric power generation from Buford Dam and maintaining a navigable waterway along the lower Chattahoochee. Because water supply wasn’t mentioned in the authorization, the Atlanta area has no right to control how much water is released. (Of course one could wonder how Alabama’s interest in releasing more water in order to support paper mills and power plants in their state would stand up to the same argument).
If you live in Gwinnett, Hall or Forsyth counties, though, this becomes a tougher question. These counties (or cities within them) take water directly from the lake, not the river. I had the opportunity today to talk with a senior official within the Gwinnett Department of Water Resources who said that the department believes that it has a permit to take water from the lake that will meet county needs until at least 2030. This person also said that if the court decides that the lake can’t be used to provide drinking water they weren’t sure what would happen.
Congress could solve this problem by passing a law authorizing the use of Lake Lanier for water supply to the Atlanta area. While passing such a law would be sure to cause a catfight between representatives of the southeastern states, it may be the only way to solve this problem permanently.
Of course, an easier way to fix the problem, at least in the short term, would be to end the drought and get the lake back to its full pool. And, it looks like there might be a chance of this coming up next week. I’ve maintained for a while that tropical weather will be needed to get us out of drought conditions, and right now there’s a developing system headed towards the Bahamas that could develop into a hurricane aimed towards Georgia. The National Hurricane Center issued a Tropical Disturbance Statement this afternoon, and expects that a tropical depression or storm could develop in the next day or so.
Models indicate the storm could develop into a category 3 hurricane near Jacksonville by Tuesday. If the storm were to make landfall and move into Georgia, we could see enough rain to start bringing stream flows back to normal and reverse the drought’s effects. It’s still too far away to know the exact path (much less to start evacuating coastal areas), but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.
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