Perdue to Bush: ‘A little help?’
October 22, 2007 at 1:58 pm by Thomas Wheatley in NewsAt a press conference at Lake Lanier, Gov. Sonny Perdue – fresh off the plane from a business jaunt in Japan – designated 85 counties in the state’s northern third as being under a state of emergency and requested that President George Bush declare the region a major disaster area exempt from the Federal Endangered Species Act. The federal law requires the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, or USACE, to release water from the dwindling lake to sustain two endangered species of mussels in addition to its duties providing water for two power plants and other needs downstream.
The governor’s declaration creates an advisory panel – the Drought Response Unified Command Group – comprised of various state agencies including the Georgia Emergency Management Agency and the state’s Environmental Protection Division. The president’s declaration would free up federal funds for stricken areas and allow businesses to apply for low-interest loans. In the meantime, aside from conserving water or taking advantage of the free low-flow fixtures that some metro counties are offering to customers, you can only wait and pray for rain.
The 80-days-till-dry countdown being bandied about in the media and by elected officials? It’s off-kilter, says the Corps, the entity that oversees Buford Dam at Lake Lanier, and which, throughout the entire water-shortage debacle, has been public enemy No. 1. The Corps says the state’s number for Lake Lanier is a month shy of accurate.
The light precipitation the metro area has seen today and during the past two weeks is only momentarily stopping that clock. The region is 16 inches shy of its annual average, and barring two weeks of steady rain, the drizzles are more bought time rather than a saving grace. That rare glimpse of precipitation Atlanta saw a little over a week ago? It amounted to .08 of an inch, says the National Weather Service.
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