Fresh Loaf

“BOOMLET”: Demographers say the high number of U.S. births in 2007, the highest in 50 years, could signal a mini baby boom.

LONG TIME NO SEA: Dylan the sea turtle is finally in the open ocean.

RAIN CHECK: July downpours have barely made a dent in the drought after a hot, dry June. Lake Lanier levels have dropped so much that nighttime tournament fishing is no longer allowed.

A SHOT AT THE DARK: The Jekyll Island Authority is considering an ordinance to restrict outdoor lighting on the island.

HARTSFIELD-JACKSON: Named the most efficient U.S. airport for the third straight year.

DON’T BUILD IT; THEY WON’T COME: Home construction is the slowest it’s been in 17 years.

Bookmark It

OBAMA: Debuts his first TV ad of the post-primaries campaign in Georgia and 17 other states today.

STUDY BUDDIES: Florida’s Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep. Allen Boyd have introduced a bill calling for a comprehensive study of water-management needs for the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system, despite the fact that a three-year process to update the ACF system’s operation manuals is already under way.

LOCH MESS: Lake Lanier and Alabama’s West Point Lake and Lake Walter George are all expected to drop several feet over the next five weeks, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

FLAGPOLE MUSIC AWARDS: R.E.M. won Best Album for Accelerate last night; Flagpole interviews Peter Buck in anticipation of R.E.M.’s show at Lakewood tomorrow.

PUT UP YOUR NUKES: The Savannah River Site seals up its 7 million cubic feet of radioactive waste after 22 years of being an active dump.

FRAUDIAN SLIP: Federal prosecutors indict seven metro Atlantans in an alleged straw-buyer mortgage fraud scam, part of the FBI’s nationwide “Operation Malicious Mortgage.”

THRASHERS COACH: We at least know one thing: The Thrashers either have or haven’t hired a new head coach. (UPDATE: They have.)

MLS COMING TO ATLANTA? Arthur Blank is either looking into bringing us a new Major League Soccer team, a Multiple Listing Service or a Master’s in Library Science. I’m not sure which sounds the most boring.

Bookmark It

LEAVEITTOWN: The reeling housing market is accelerating Americans’ interest in New Urbanism, helping reverse the march toward suburbia that began post-WWII with the Levittown burbs.

AN INCONVENIENT YOUTH: Al Gore takes the stage with Barack Obama in Detroit to endorse the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, lending his enormous party clout to the young upstart, albeit a little late.

NORREESE HAYNES: The former Clayton County school board member’s lawsuit, an attempt to regain his board seat he was voted out of in March, is dismissed by Clayton Superior Court Judge Deborah Benefield.

BIOMASS PLANT: Rollcast Energy plans to build a $160 million, 50-megawatt biomass power plant in Lamar County that will burn wood waste from logging, land-clearing and other sources.

WINGS AND A PRAYER: Aside from its Athens-Atlanta flights, which it’s initially offering for $49, Wings Air has hopes of becoming a regional commuter airline to compete with increasingly clogged ground traffic.

CHORE OF ENGINEERS: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ water plan doesn’t seem to please anyone, as Georgia officials say it doesn’t do enough to conserve Lake Lanier’s water, and everyone south says it does too much.

PLAYING DIRTY: Former Pike Nurseries CEO Randy Pike was arrested and charged with groping several women at a pool party in Dalton over the weekend.

Bookmark It

OBAMA AND CLINTON: Meet in Washington.

PREZ DISPENSER: Georgia has six public universities, including Georgia Tech and Georgia State, that have recently lost their presidents and are searching for new ones before fall classes begin.

TRAINING DAY: Gwinnettians will vote in the July 15 primary whether to pay a penny sales tax for MARTA service in the county. Although the last such vote in 1990 failed, recent polling indicates many now think itsmarta, perhaps due to horrible traffic and gas prices. As a backup to rail, though, county leaders are hoping to at least introduce diesel-electric hybrid accordion buses to the historically train-trepid public.

DOWN AND DROUGHT: Lake Lanier is still 13 feet below normal despite winter rains, meaning the next best hope is for a hurricane to hang out in North Georgia for a while this summer.

CHIPPER JONES: Hits 400th career home run.

CARTERSVILLE ADVENTURE: Illinois man has a big morning in Cartersville.

Bookmark It

CAMPAIGN RELIEF: Clinton is expected to concede the delegate race to Obama today. * She’s saying she’ll “do whatever it takes” to put a Democrat in the White House, which was taken by Obama supporters as a hint she’d accept a VP offer.

* UPDATE: Now the Clinton campaign denies AP reports that she will concede the nomination tonight. Sigh.

WATER RETENTION: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approves plan to keep more water in Lake Lanier and other Georgia reservoirs.

CHAMBLISS: “Amazed” by public support for the U.S. Homeland Security Department’s National Bio- and Agro-defense Facility in Athens.

KSU PROF: Gets $201,000 grant, seen as boon to smallish university’s research cred.

SMOLTZ: Comes off DL, blows save.

BORDER TOWNS: Would lose their edge, literally, if that Georgia/Tennessee border change ever happened.

A TAX TO GRIND: Mayor Franklin proposes 4.8 percent shortfall-alleviating property-tax increase, which is palatable to some City Council members compared with her original estimate of 20 percent or more, but still too much to others.

WHAT ALES US: Beer prices are rising as ingredients cost more and production is down. Apparently, beer may not be recession-proof.

Bookmark It

CRITICS AT BAY: Florida Sen. Bill Nelson tours the Apalachicola Bay to survey the effects of retaining more water in Lake Lanier, and says he’ll push for a National Academy of Sciences study of how low flows affect the river ecosystem.

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE FUNNEL: 2008 could be a record year for U.S. tornadoes, and while meteorologists aren’t sure why this year has been so tornadically prolific — including the twister that caused $40 million in damage in north metro Atlanta last week — the good news is that tornado season usually starts sputtering out in June.

BORDERS SKIRMISH: City Council President Lisa Borders writes a letter to her councilmates asking them to be nicer to the mayor.

HAWKS GM SEARCH: As is becoming typical of front-office searches in Atlanta pro sports, Cleveland’s Chris Grant withdraws himself from consideration after being offered the general manager job.

UGA EXPANDING IN GWINNETT: With the Brain Train struggling to gain traction, UGA just starts filling the gaps between Athens and Atlanta with itself.

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL: Piedmont Park may soon install wells for water independence, pending a decision by the state Environmental Protection Division.

CAUGHT LEAD-HANDED: Two studies link children’s lead exposure 25 years ago and increased impulsive and criminal behavior in adulthood.

Bookmark It

Don’t get all primed to start watering your lawn and washing your car and turning on those yard fountains just yet.

While there’s a feeling we’re out of the danger zone with water, an official with the Army Corps of Engineers told a group in Dawsonville yesterday that Lake Lanier could drop six feet by September if we have the dry summer that everyone is predicting.

According to a story in the Gwinnett Daily Post, the water manager told the Lake Lanier Association that the lake level is expected to drop this summer — the only issue is by how much. That, of course, did not make the Lake Lanier residents very happy.

But Brig. Gen. Joseph Schroedel also gave one of the most succinct, no bullshit statements about the region’s water crisis that we’ve heard:

I feel your pain. Look at how fast the population is growing. We can’t keep leaning on the same system and quadruple the population.”

Anyone in state government paying attention?

Bookmark It

TEACHING TO THE TESTAMENT: Bible-as-literature classes clear legal hurdles in Tennessee and Georgia.

FLOCK ENROLL: Atlanta is the No. 1 major metropolitan area in the nation for college enrollment growth over the last 17 years and No. 2 in number of degrees awarded.

OVERRIDE: City Council takes Mayor Franklin down a notch by overriding three of her recent vetoes.

TESLER TRIAL: Jury deadlocked.

LANIER: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers takes heavy fire for its water-releasin’ ways at the Lake Lanier Association’s annual meeting Monday; the association is so fed up it’s funding its own scientific study on how much water the downstream mussels need to live.

GRADY CURVE: Grady Health System is officially taken over by Grady Memorial Hospital Corp. today, and also receives the first $50 million installment of the $200 million the Robert M. Woodruff Foundation pledged.

FOOT (AND MOUTH) IN THE DOOR: The U.S. farm bill includes a provision allowing the incurable foot-and-mouth disease to be studied in a mainland U.S. facility, clearing the way for the National Bio- and Agro-defense Facility, for which Athens is one of six candidates.

COMING TO BLOWS: Sustained wind gusts of 20 to 30 mph expected today.

Bookmark It

CLINTON: Wins West Virginia; Obama courts bluer collars.

LEAVE IT TO BEAZER: Atlanta-based Beazer Homes announces it lost more than $400 million in fiscal 2007. It’s also still the target of federal investigations over its mortgage lending practices.

MARRIOT MARQUIS: The 52-story downtown hotel was evacuated last night, with no reported injuries, after a fire created a cloud of chlorine gas in the parking garage basement. Here’s AccessNorthGa’s take on what happened.

LANDLINES: Lame.

COMMUTISM: High gas prices are fueling more carpooling, bussing and train riding in Gwinnett.

HOLDING WATER: Gov. Perdue visits the muddy shores of Lake Lanier to sign the Water Conservation and Drought Relief Act of 2008, which will expedite the creation of new reservoirs.

THE HOLE TRUTH: A large hole has appeared in a White County dam, and officials say the entire dam is in danger of failure.

Bookmark It

CHINA EARTHQUAKE: Death toll has passed 12,000 from Monday’s 7.9-magnitude quake, with more than 18,000 buried under rubble in just one city.

ATTRACTING RETENTION: Only 12 percent of embattled Clayton County’s teachers are leaving the school system, which is lower than some administrators had feared.

BATTLE OF ‘WITZ: Emory political scientist Alan Abramowitz writes a Washington Post op-ed on Obama, working-class whites and “symbolic racism.”

WEST VIRGINIA: Clinton campaigns, Obama campaigns.

PASSING THE BARR: Bob Barr announces he’s running for president as a Libertarian.

DREAM TEAM: A collection of rookies and role players, the new Atlanta Dream begins its season next weekend, hoping some residual basketball fever remains in the city from the Hawks’ playoff run.

HERE WE ARE NOW: Gov. Perdue signs a bill that will give up to a 30 percent entertainment tax credit to productions of films, TV shows, commercials, music videos and video games in the state.

HAVE YOUR LAKE AND DRINK IT, TOO: Lake Lanier Association doesn’t think all lakes are created equal.

Bookmark It

RAGING ELECTION: Both candidates win a state and both claim momentum, but Obama gets more delegates. Remaining primaries are: W.Va. (May 13), Ky. (May 20), Ore. (May 20), Mont. (June 3), S.D. (June 3) and P.R. (June 7).

KNIGHT OUT: Hawks GM Billy Knight steps down.

BEE MINUS: Survey released Tuesday shows that more than a third of the nation’s honeybees have been lost since last year. As Thomas reported Monday, air pollution is one likely factor; UGA entomologists studying colony collapse disorder also point to shrinking food supply, parasitic mites and the recently identified Israeli acute paralysis virus.

DEATH PENALTY: Back in action, as William Early Lynd was killed last night.

CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN: First-ever Georgia Climate Change Summit, hosted by Georgia Tech Tuesday, brings together scientists and policy experts in the hope of starting an action plan to address global warming in the state. Georgia’s currently one of 12 states that not only doesn’t have such a plan, but isn’t even working on one.

‘FLAT LINE’: Apalachicola Riverkeeper hosts a two-day tour of the Chattahoochee Basin’s terminus to draw attention to what Florida officials contend is an Atlanta- and Georgia-first policy of water use and watershed management.

GIVING UP THE GHOST: Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, the musical by Stephen King and John Mellencamp scheduled for an April 2009 opening at the Alliance, has been postponed.

Bookmark It

GAME 6 TONIGHT: I’ve seen Celtic Pride. We have to keep Daniel Stern and Dan Akroyd away from Joe Johnson today.

GANGBUSTERS: Gang experts say the NBA only drew attention to Paul Pierce’s apparent gang sign during the Celtics Game 4 loss in Atlanta by fining him for it.

TEAT-TOTALING: Three out of four moms now breast-feed their babies, according to the CDC, an “all-time high” since the mid-’80s.

BRIDGE JUMPERS STANDERS: I-985 closed down yesterday; I-20 closed down this morning. Neither jumper jumped.

LOW FLOW: The state wants to extend lower flows from Lake Lanier through May 31, but just about everyone south of Atlanta doesn’t.

CLAYTON SCHOOLS: Gov. Perdue signs two bills into law to safeguard Clayton students and hold the school board more accountable as de-accreditation looms closer.

AIR ABERRANT: If you’re waiting for Atlanta to get off the list of top 10 most polluted cities, don’t hold your breath. Actually, maybe you should.

Bookmark It

MAYDAY: Smog season starts today.

ROLLING OUT THE RED CARPETBAG: Niagara County, New York, assuming companies in the South are too lethargic from dehydration to move elsewhere, considers venturing down here to liberate them to the Great Wet North.

FLEXING ITS MUSSELS: Florida pulls the marine-life card again in response to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ recent water-sharing proposal.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Mission to sugarcoat and obfuscate Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner snafu accomplished.

BOSTON MASSACRE: Home teams keep winning as the Celtics handily take Game 5 from the Hawks. Game 6 is here tomorrow night.

DEMOCRATIC SENATE RACE: Getting melodramatic.

LIAISONS LEAVING: State liaisons assigned to help Clayton County save its accreditation ask Gov. Perdue to excuse them from what they call an impossible task, saying the school board has only gotten more dysfunctional since the SACS report was released in February.

OH REALLY? Unhelpful headlines today:

Bookmark It

UNHAPPY AS A CLAM: Mussels, north Floridians will suffer from Corps of Engineers’ new water proposal, says a Florida congressman, while Lake Lanier Association president says the plan doesn’t go far enough.

LEGAL INJECTION: SCOTUS dismisses challenge to constitutionality of Kentucky’s lethal injection procedure, freeing up other states to kill their prisoners again. Two Georgia death-row inmates are now back on track to be executed.

SEPARATE BUT DIESEL: Ga. DOT explains the problems with bringing truck-only lanes to Atlanta, while the idea’s sponsor stubbornly soldiers on.

BURDEN OF PROF: Two still-unidentified Ga. Tech professors are being investigated for fraud and theft.

LEATHERHEADS: Georgia State is expected to announce today its plans to start a football team in 2010. AJC’s Tony Barnhart lists five things the Panthers must do to succeed. Around this time last year, Mark Bradley wrote why they won’t succeed.

LACROSSE-CULTURAL: Toli, the 500-year-old Native American predecessor of lacrosse, is big in Athens, where on Saturday UGA’s team will host the 21-time world-champion Conehatta Skunks, who are Choctaw.

THE PAYBACK: The Augusta Metro Spirit lists what will be available at James Brown’s estate sale in August.

PRO-STRIFE: Yale art student artificially inseminates herself “as often as possible,” takes drugs to induce miscarriages, collects the blood, and presents it along with videos of her miscarriages as her senior art project.

Bookmark It

SOFT CORPS: In a salve for metro Atlanta’s water woes, the Army Corps of Engineers releases a new proposal reducing the minimum amount of water that can be released from Lake Lanier daily. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has until June 1 to approve the plan. Perdue already approves.

GSUED: Georgia State is sued by three academic publishers for digitally reproducing materials for online without asking permission or paying licensing fees.

BELFRY-FOR-ALL: “Dozens” to “tens of thousands” of Mexican free-tailed bats’ noise and guano annoy Augustans.

CLAYTON: School board replaces chairwoman Ericka Davis, who resigned, with Eddie White, who had already announced he’s resigning in June.

BLANK SLATE: NYT profiles the Falcons’ owner, his turbulent 2007 and the reset ‘08 Falcons.

TANGLED WEB: Boortz Web link to mdjonline.com video crashes the paper’s servers.

Bookmark It

NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP: Memphis crumbles, Mario Chalmers hits the shot of his life and Kansas wins in OT.

GRADY EXPECTATIONS: Robert M. Woodruff Foundation gives $200 million cash donation to the ailing hospital to keep it afloat as power is transferred.

THE LONGEST YARD: Michael Vick initiates mail correspondence with Arthur Blank, telling the Falcons owner he’s playing football in prison and washing pots and pans for 12 cents an hour.

FLIPPING A BIRD? Unnamed active Falcons player is subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in NFL performance-enhancing drug investigation.

SPRING BREAK! Despite having made almost no progress in the quest to meet SACS’s nine accreditation-hinging mandates, Clayton County Schools administration is taking its scheduled five days off for spring break like everyone else in the school system. Meanwhile, the interim superintendent pleads for leniency.

IT TOLLS FOR FEE: I-85 OTP could be getting optional toll lanes to ease traffic congestion, possibly as far north as I-985.

STONY BURKE: Lobbyist with vaguely subdivisionesque name is tapped as Southern Co.’s new “director of federal legislative meddling affairs.”

LAKE LANIER: Will be the site of Canadian Olympic trials next month, presumably for its mud-racing team.

Bookmark It

ITP TORNADO: Downtown F-2’s damage rattles hospitality industry, street closings and debris cause isolated traffic problems downtown this morning.

OTP TORNADO: Two killed by separate F-3 northwest of the city. A photo from the home of Bonnie Turner, one of the casualties, was carried 129 miles by the storm, landing in Cornelia, just west of the South Carolina border.

LANIER: Up 3/4 of a foot from Friday.

WAYNE CLOUGH: Steps down as Tech’s president to lead troubled Smithsonian.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Medical College of Georgia neuroscientist studies memory formation.

DEANGELO HALL: Trade to Oakland seems likely.

HOW ABOUT: Them Dogs. SEC championship, NCAA berth bolster Felton’s job security.

Bookmark It

CLINTON: Bounces back in the race for Democratic phone answerer nomination. Texas caucus still TBD.

HUCKABEE: Math: 1. Miracles: 1÷0.

OBAMA: Gets another Georgia superdelegate.

LANIER: Up two feet, but will drop again soon. Don’t think you’re off the hook, Tennessee.

GBD 08058: Don’t eat chicken, meatloaf or turkey that says that on it.

CLAYTON SCHOOL BOARD: Accreditation schmaccreditation. No one makes a fool of Norreese Haynes! (Well, except Norreese Haynes.)

Bookmark It

From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court has thrown out an agreement that Georgia reached with the Army Corps of Engineers for water rights to Lake Lanier, handing Alabama and Florida a major victory in the states’ years-long water wars.

The agreement, which would give Georgia about a quarter of the lake’s capacity over the coming decades for drinking water, is the foundation of Georgia’s long-term plans.

Bookmark It

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sent out a press release today announcing an environmental impact assessment will be conducted at Bethel Park, a 62-acre parcel of undeveloped land on Lake Lanier’s western shore. According to the release, development proposals have been submitted by the YMCA of Metropolitan Atlanta and Forsyth County. The Corps says that 25 acres of the land would remain undeveloped.

Click here to read the release.

Bookmark It

Everyone’s talking about Lake Lanier and its water-level woes. It is, after all, a big deal — Lake Lanier supplies water for 60 percent of the state. But I ain’t drinkin’ it.

I, along with about 80,000 of my closest friends from Marietta and Cartersville, get my water from Allatoona Lake — or Lake Allatoona, to those who actually refer to it.

Like a bridge over no water.

Speaking to a representative from the Allatoona Lake Visitor’s Center, I asked if the lake had been drained this year, as it is every winter. The woman laughed at me. “Yeah,” she said, “it’s down about 21 feet this year.” The usual drop is around 17 feet. Interesting fact, eh?

I decided to take a trip to see the damage the drought had done to the lake six million people visit yearly.

And it looks the same, just much, much smaller.
(more…)

Bookmark It

The water news isn’t getting any better.

Florida’s director of the Department of Environmental Protection has sent a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers complaining about the reduced flow from Lake Lanier.

The Corps reduced the flow of water out of the lake Nov. 16. Now, Florida is complaining that reduction has caused an increase in salt levels in Apalachicola Bay — where the Chattahoochee River flows into the Gulf of Mexico — and is already killing oysters.

Meanwhile, the Corps of Engineers predicts Lake Lanier will drop another foot by the end of the month.

Bookmark It

So I get off work tonight at about 11:50 pm (I’ll explain later) and there’s all these text messages, phone message and email congratulating me.

– Buzz Brockway on the reaction to inclusion of one of his questions in last night’s CNN/YouTube debate. The question is linked on Buzz’s site.

—–

As was the case during the last bit of rain we got, Lake Lanier dropped even further yesterday in spite of the rain. In fact, since this blog started (October 16), the lake has dropped every single day.

– Atlanta Water Shortage answers the question “Did the rain help?”

—–

What is it about politicians from Hope, Ark.? They sure know how to work a room. Huckabee may be a Bible thumper, but he’s clever. And unlike that other Arkansas governor, I think he’s genuine. I just don’t want him to be president;

– ATLMalcontent offers conditional props to Huckabee.

Bookmark It

Hey, kids! A new forecast by our friends at the Army Corps of Engineers tells us it’ll be only a few short weeks till we’re all drinking from Lake Lanier’s “dead pool.” Mmm!

Maybe we could bottle it and market it under some tasty-sounding name. Here’s some suggestions:

• Stagnant Springs
• Buford Dam Backwash
• Eau de Merde
• Effluvi-Yum
• Sedimentally Yours
• Brown Water Mountain
• Fish-kill Spritzer
• Aqua-Giardia
• Cesspool Juice
• Dasani

OK, here’s the lovely chart (click to enlarge):

Bookmark It

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services said today that releasing less water from Lake Lanier would not endanger several federally protected species living downstream, but the announcement is not the godsend for which state officials had hoped. Effective immediately, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can reduce flows out of Lake Lanier to 4,500 cubic feet per second, or CFS, until June 1, should drought conditions not improve. On average, the Corps has been releasing 5,000 CFS from Lake Lanier.

The Corps had originally hoped to reduce releases to 4,150 CFS, but FWS officials say they did not have enough time to research the effects such a move would have on all the species which rely on water flows. FWS studied how the change in releases would affect the Gulf sturgeon and three mussels species — the purple bankclimber, fat threeridge, and Chipola slabshell.

FWS officials say the reduced releases stand to affect the fat threeridge mussel the greatest. The sentinel species is at risk of losing 9 percent of its population. Should lesser releases be needed, FWS officials say they will work with the Corps.

The reduced releases will also benefit other downstream lakes, such as West Point, by allowing them to retain more water.

Here’s a snippet from release by FWS …

The modification provides for a pathway to increase composite storage – that is the amount of water stored at Lanier, West Point, and Walter F. George. If the Corps does not hold back some water now, and if extreme drought conditions continue, it is possible there may not be enough water in storage next summer to meet the needs of the users.

“We live here too, and fully understand what is at stake in the negotiation about how to allocate water,” Hamilton said. “As citizens throughout this basin, we are learning that choices have consequences and we cannot outgrow our carrying capacity, living beyond what our region’s natural resources can support.”

“While fish and wildlife conservation is only a small part of this balancing act, we approach our role seriously,” Hamilton said. “It is our responsibility to ensure these indicator species, which help us assess the health of the system, are given the best chance possible to ultimately thrive. The better they do, the better we will do. Because if this drought has shown us anything, it has shown us we cannot thrive as a citizenry on an unhealthy river system. ”

Bookmark It