This is going to be one of those grab-bag posts. Sometimes I see things in the news that are weather related, but don’t post immediately about them.There have been a few things like that recently, so here goes.

We’ll start with the drought, and more specifically, the effects on the Atlanta water supply. As Lake Lanier remains at near record low levels, Georgia EPD Director Carol Couch has asked the Army Corps of Engineers to reduce discharges from the lake to create a flow of 650 CFS at Peachtree Creek on the Chattahoochee River. This is similar to a reduction made last spring which, Couch argues, didn’t cause any environmental damage, and would save some 11.7 billion gallons of water.

Meanwhile, Senator Obama has apparently decided that Florida is more important than Georgia, telling potential Sunshine State voters he would side with them when it comes to deciding who gets water from the Apalachicola Chattahoochee Flint river basin. This prompted a quick response from Senators Isakson and Chambliss expressing their disappointment with his comments. It’s another reason to think carefully before you decide to vote for the Chosen One.

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The US Fish and Wildlife Service released its biological opinion today, allowing the Army Corps of Engineers to reduce the water volume flowing into the Apalachicola River from 5,000 cubic feet per second to 4,750 CFS, and later to 4,500 CFS.  The reduced flow levels can continue until June 1st, at which point the situation will be reevaluated.

While the intention of the move is to keep more water in Lake Lanier, officials at a press conference in Atlanta said that the amount of water actually released from the lake on any given day will depend on conditions all along the  Apalachicola - Chattahoochee - Flint river basin. For example, heavy rains along the Flint basin in South Georgia might mean that no water would have to be released from Lanier, but continued dry weather elsewhere would cause the Corps to release additional Lanier water.  The situation is monitored on a daily basis.

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It’s been four weeks since the Georgia Environmental Protection Division declared level 4 watering restrictions in the northern third of the state. By now, I think everyone has realized that we’re truly in a drought situation, and counties and other water providers are struggling to figure out how to reduce consumption by 10% below traditionally low winter water usage.

At the state and federal level, officials are playing the blame game. Sonny Perdue is blaming the mussels in Florida; the Alabama and Florida Governors are making the case that they are legitimate water users, and even South Georgia is getting into the act, with the Valdosta Times saying,

“The wasteful ways of Atlantans continued through the past decade of severe drought in the state. The water restrictions meant little to them “up there” as they had plenty of water at the time, while rural Georgia and farmers were watching their crops burn in their fields, listening as Atlanta politicians who apparently do think their food originates in a grocery store passed policies designed to prevent them from accessing the water literally beneath their feet.”

I was reminded of an op-ed page that appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in July of 2006 by a photographer who went to Apalachicola Bay with a group of water experts to take pictures of the situation. The article, entitled “Lanier Not a Water Culprit” is no longer available online, so I went to the library to look it up on microfilm. Here are some of the key points the article made:

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In response to my previous post, Rahn wondered what areas fed water into Lake Lanier, and the other area lakes. This was in response to my saying that rain north of Huntsville, Alabama would help reduce the drought. I did a little digging to find out the answer, and it may surprise you. Lake Lanier is part of what is called the ACF river basin. ACF stands for Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint, the three major rivers that ultimately drain down into the Gulf of Mexico in Florida. Lake Allatoona is part of the ACT river basin, whose initials stand for Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa. That basin also drains into the Gulf near Mobile, Alabama. The map below shows the boundaries of the two basins:

The brown part of the map is the ACT river basin, and the green and yellow parts are the ACF basin. The yellow portion is the part of the basin that drains into Lake Lanier.

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