Posted on 12/05/2007 10:30:19 AM PST by cogitator
ATLANTA (AP) — Townspeople stood in the sweltering heat at grocery stores and community centers, waiting to fill plastic jugs with water. Tanker trucks rumbled down the highways, bringing relief to a thirsty town suddenly gone dry.
That was the scene 13 years ago when the Georgia city of Macon ran out of water. But it could also be a glimpse of the very near future in Atlanta and some other cities in the drought-stricken Southeast.
They may be down to just a few months of easily accessible water, and the faucets could run dry if reservoirs aren't replenished soon.
The state of Georgia said it has lined up contracts with vendors to bring in bottled water and tanker trucks that could dispense water into jugs, jars and buckets.
"Are we going to get to that point? I don't know. But the most important thing is to be prepared," said Buzz Weiss, spokesman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.
But the state, the city of Atlanta and the Georgia National Guard, which could be called into action by the governor to deliver water in an emergency, have yet to work out the details of exactly where the water would be distributed and how, saying it is too soon to say where it might be needed.
In any case, those are just emergency measures for supplying people with the water they need for drinking, cooking, bathing and flushing the toilet. Atlanta and other communities have yet to settle on a long-term solution if the water runs out.
State and city officials have talked about building more reservoirs, pipelines and pumps, but they have not adopted a plan, and none of those ideas are quick fixes.
"We don't think that the worst-case scenario is likely, but we are thinking about what we might do if we don't get rain before next summer," said Atlanta city water spokeswoman Janet Ward. "We are pretty much looking at every option."
Bill Bozarth, director of the Georgia arm of the government watchdog group Common Cause, wondered why the state has not come up with a plan yet. "You would think the water crisis would start to become more of a priority," he said.
Time may be running out.
Before the area got a little rain over the past few weeks, authorities said that Lake Lanier, the Georgia reservoir that supplies most of metropolitan Atlanta's 5 million people, had less than four months of readily available water left. And an unusually dry winter is forecast.
Water vendors are preparing for the worst. Lipsey Mountain Spring Water, a vendor with the Federal Emergency Management Agency that is in contract talks with the state, said it has about 4 million liters of water in warehouses in Georgia and Florida.
Other towns in the Southeast are also in dire straits.
In Durham, N.C., population 210,000, officials fear there is less than two months of accessible water left. The city is trying to conserve to stave off the worst.
Athens, Ga., a college town of roughly 110,000 people about 60 miles from Atlanta, recently reached an agreement with water companies to pump more water into a dwindling reservoir. Now the city is "cautiously optimistic" its lake could refill over the winter, said city spokesman Jeff Montgomery.
As for what might happens if the tap runs dry, Georgians do not have to look any further than Macon, whose water plant was knocked out by Tropical Storm Alberto's floodwaters in 1994. Many of the city's 160,000 residents without water for three weeks.
State and federal authorities trucked in millions of gallons of water, set up 26 staging areas around the city and hauled in 2,200 portable bathrooms, said Johnny Wingers, director of Macon's emergency management agency.
"I get chill bumps thinking about it," he said. "It's 21 days I'll never forget. It burned an indelible impression in my brain."
This drought is due to La Nina and the incompetence of the Army Corp of Engineers, who are responsible for the Chattahoochee river system. They should have reduced outflows by a small percentage a long time ago, but due to nothing but stubbornness, they refused to do so. The solution is not an expensive construction project, but for Sonny Purdue to send in the GA National Guard and take over operations of the Buford Dam.
La Nina’s making it worse, but I think rainfall in this portion of the Southeast has been below normal for four(?) years now. Despite the associated problems, it’d be somewhat useful for a few tropical systems to dump several tens of inches of rain on the area to help refill the reservoirs.
I spent Thanksgiving in Northern Georgia — and drove over to Lake Lanier to see its condition for myself..
It is bad.. Worse than I’ve ever seen it..
Water level in the Northern sections looked to be between 15 and 20 feet below the obvious shore indicators of NORMAL water level.....
Lake Lanier is HUGE... It is nearly 40,000 acres with about 700 miles of shoreline, so being 15-20 down represents a WHOLE lot of water that’s gone —— that’s about 800,000 acre/ft of water!
All the “floating” docks I observed were sitting in sun baked clay, due to the water being too low and too far from shore to be handled by the length of the “floating” docks...
Nature did not cause this alone — the Federal assholes with Army Corps of Engineers unwittingly were releasing excessive amounts for MONTHS last year.. They were monitoring “gauges” miles from the lake, and refused to believe lake dwellers who would call to report huge drops in water level....
Builders, Developers, Home owners and sportsmen are all SERIOUSLY impacted by the lake’s condition..
Lake front homes are not selling, prices are dropping and the entire region’s economy will be impacted...
Some old timers told me they thought it would be between 5/10 years before the lake could recover assuming normal rainfall levels — maybe longer, and certainly much longer if the rains don’t arrive SOON with a vengence!
When the rain finally pours down in Georgia, people always wish for it to stop. I admit, Georgia’s lakes are hurting pretty bad, but some of them fill up so fast, it’s almost hard to believe. I’ve seen lake Allatoon go from 20 feet down to over 10 foot over flood stage in just a month or two. Then they hurry up and drain it down too low for the summer.
The only decent lake in Georgia is Lake Oconee, which stays pretty steady year round. In extreme drought years they have lowered it by 4 foot one year. That made for the best fishing the next year, because of all the weeds and brush that grew up on the bare shores. So far this year they have only lowered it 2.5 feet during the drought. For one thing, it’s a pump back resevoir and it varies each day like a tidal system during the week when the dam is operating. That’s also when the fish bite best, making fishing during the weekends horrible.
They need to build some more dams in north Georgia and build some pipelines to Atlanta. I went a week without water in Savannah when Hurricane David hit in 1978, and that wasn’t much fun either.
I hope you’re right about the lake’s recovery...
There is a high probability we will be moving back home soon, and I’d love to locate on one of the more remote northern fingers of Lake Lanier.
I thought it was “midnight TRAIN to Georgia”
silly me.
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