Fresh Loaf

If things go the way David Stooksbury predicts, prepare for a dry summer in 2008. The Athens Banner-Herald reports that the state’s climatologist told a group gathered at the University of Georgia’s Driftmier Engineering Center that while recent rains have helped the parched region, we’ve received less than half what we normally see this time of year.

“That means we are not receiving the recharge that is needed at this time of year for next summer. That is a big concern,” he said.

Stooksbury had already predicted a La Nina effect would bring the Southeast a drier and warmer winter. The Banner-Herald reports the climatologist saying that soil in Middle and coastal Georgia is drier. Even with reservoirs getting a jolt from the rain, streams and groundwater levels are lower. Since late September, the drought’s reach has spread farther south and closer to the coast. (Visit the Banner-Herald article to view an animation of the drought’s spread.)

That doesn’t exactly bode well according to what hydrologist Dan Sheer said last week to a meeting of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water District at the Atlanta Regional Commission. He said that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ reduced releases from Buford Dam have helped slow dwindling lake levels, but that those releases are set to change June 1.

“If the [reduced releases] expire in June and we have a repeat of last year, the reservoirs would dip into dead storage near the middle of September,” he said. “Lake levels would be reduced by 15 percent.”

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Water management a la personal finance:

“You don’t have to be a banker to know that if you spend 75 percent of your savings, and then all of your income, you’ll soon become bankrupt,” said Dan Sheer, a bearded and expressive Maryland hydrologist.

That was the analogy Sheer dropped to illustrate the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ mismanagement of water resources during a meeting yesterday of top water planners and experts at the Atlanta Regional Commission. Sheer, who has been working with King and Spalding, the district’s legal counsel, was one of several speakers who briefed members of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water District on the water-shortage situation as well as an update of the 18-year legal proceedings among Georgia, Florida and Alabama.

And the dominant message of the afternoon was clear: “Don’t blame Atlanta. Blame the Corps.”

(more…)

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No, not you, Shelbinator.

Mysterious Mickey at Atlanta Water Shortage is pissed — I repeat, pissed — at Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby and his earmark-slippin’ ways. According to 11Alive News — and a bevy of others — the distinguished gentleman from Alabama snuck an earmark into yesterday’s pork-laden budget bill that would prevent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from making any changes to outdated water release manuals. The article says Georgia has wanted the Corps to do just that for years, to take into account metro Atlanta’s booming growth. Alabama’s held out until the states could agree exactly how they’d share the water. From That Other Paper:

In October, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it would start the three-year process to rewrite manuals for the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint and Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa river basins, which together supply metro Atlanta’s water. The ACF includes Lanier and drains south into Florida; the ACT includes Allatoona and drains southwest into Alabama.

Shelby’s provision would bar the agency from spending money updating the manuals unless the corps provides certain information up front, including a 25-year projection of water use in both basins.

Ladies and gentlemen, via press release, Sen. Saxby Chambliss … he’s pissed, too!

“The governors of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida are finally at the negotiating table finding a way forward on this very difficult issue,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said Wednesday, referring to recent water-sharing negotiations. “It is mind boggling to see this language in the omnibus bill intended to block that progress.”

The gentleman from Alabama says he’s just looking out for the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of his state. I suppose that would include Atlanta-based Southern Co., which, according to Open Secrets, was his biggest political contributer in 2006. The company’s subsidiary, Alabama Power, operates 24 power-generating facilities in the state.

According to SourceWatch, Shelby is an interesting character — friend of Big Tobacco, a holdout on a bill that cut off business ties to firms associated with Darfur, and basically an earmark-happy kind of guy.

For example, even though Shelby has put the quash on the Corps’ planned updates, he’s nonetheless gonna give it some new digs. Included in his earmarks was $5 million for what the Associated Press calls his “pet project.” The senator wants to uproot the Corps from its current field office — even though it never requested it — and then raze the riverfront spot to allow the area to be developed.

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Congratulations, 61 counties of drought-addled Georgia — you’ve conserved 348 million gallons each day, or enough water to serve 1.7 million homes! Them be the facts spoken by Gov. Sonny Perdue during a press conference today in his office at the Capitol.

In mid-October, Perdue demanded all permit holders reduce their water use by 10 percent compared to an average of their use from the previous year. Permit holders are users such as utility providers, industries and municipalities that use more than 100,000 gallons of water per day. The governor said today that since the demand, just under half — 46 out of 97 permit holders — met that goal. DeKalb County and the city of Atlanta said they just missed the cut, although the city is included in the governor’s list.

The state Environmental Protection Division is contacting those that did not meet the goal to inquire why. He added that there may or may not be any type of consequence for those who do not reduce water usage by 10 percent. Any such measure would not be implemented until after the state worked with those users and judged if they had made efforts to cut back their water use, Perdue said. The state predicts 17 of the largest water users are expected to meet the goal during December.

The list of those good utilities and municipalities who did make the cut, after the jump.

(more…)

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Toilet Wars© may very well be the most drawn-out battle that has ever been fought in DeKalb County. The County Commission this morning yet again deferred the controversial retrofit legislation until the end of January. According to Chip Ivie, a Realtor who was in attendance this morning and has worked alongside members of his industry to oppose many aspects of the ordinance, there are still details and aspects of the measure that need to be hammered out and clarified by the commissioners.

For example, the ordinance still states that a home could be transferred or sold among family members or spouses and be exempt from the ordinance, a move the Realtors deemed unfair.

The commissioners did insert a clause that exempts homes that are scheduled to be demolished or completely renovated.

According to Kristie Swink, DeKalb’s public information officer, the vote is scheduled for Jan. 22, but may be subject to change. We’ll keep you posted.

To view the previous ordinance the commission decided to defer, click here. To sign up to receive a complimentary low-flow kit from the county’s watershed management office, click here.

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Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle continued blaming Mother Nature and mussels for the drought, and while he may be correct in that regard — we can’t control the weather, and the Corps’ mandatory releases, while important to sustain marine life downstream, have accelerated the dropping levels of Lake Lanier — he’s wrong when he says development doesn’t play a part in water shortage. There’s concern about it in Colorado, and those people know water shortages.

From an article in the Gainesville Times about Cagle’s speech yesterday morning to the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce:

“We’re not in this (water) crisis because of growth,” Cagle said. “We’re in this situation for two reasons. One, we’re in the worst drought in our state’s history. Secondly, the Corps of Engineers have mismanaged the lake (Lanier).”

He accused the corps of allowing water to go downstream “for the purpose of feeding mussels.”

(shakes head, rubs eyes) Mr. Lieutenant Governor, sir, this “man vs. mussels” thing is getting really old. We really must be sure to not leave out those power plants located downstream that are keeping all our lightbulbs aglow.

And state Rep. Carl Rogers, R-Gainesville, doesn’t necessarily agree with Cagle’s assessment of the water shortage situation. From that same article:

“I get to see 30 sky cranes every day,” Rogers said of his regular trips to Atlanta. “Atlanta is using resources. I’m not blaming Atlanta for all of our issues. We just don’t have the water flow that other states have.”

Rogers also called for using the time of reduced levels for dredging on Lanier to make it larger and deeper in selected areas.

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A whole cadre of big thinkers — from government honchos to water planners to business leaders — convened at the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce Monday morning to brainstorm about water issues and figure out how to avoid another one years down the line.

“The big issue this year [in the General Assembly] won’t be transportation,” said Sam Olens, chair of the Cobb County Board of Commissioners and the Atlanta Regional Commission. “It’ll be water.”

(more…)

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First, an apology for my post last week encouraging readers to attend a DeKalb County Commission meeting that I misinterpreted as a vote but was actually a public hearing. If I ever do that again, rest assured that I’ll be at the meeting and awaiting beat-downs from angry residents whom I may have misled. Again, I apologize.

The DeKalb County Commission today deferred the controversial proposed ordinance requiring homes in the county with pre-1993 plumbing to be retrofit prior to sale, much to the delight of the rows of Realtors who attended the meeting solely to rally against the issue. Upon the commission’s decision to hold off voting for two weeks, the army of real estate professionals — I mean, Realtors — exited Maloof Auditorium en masse.

The ordinance has been met by staunch opposition by the real estate industry, which says it places homeowners and professionals in the industry at risk of fines if properties they’ve bought or sold haven’t been retrofit. They also argue that the ordinance is shortsighted, rushed and unclear. For example, they say even homes that are meant to be torn down to make way for new ones would have to be retrofit.

CEO Vernon Jones said the county is exploring the option of setting up a $500,000 rebate program to help residents purchase the low-flow fixtures needed to comply with the ordinance. The industry argues that an incentive-based program would be more beneficial and effective.

Commissioner Jeff Rader, a strong supporter of the retrofit ordinance, said that if implemented, the measure could save 3.5 millions gallons of water each day.

If passed, look for it to go into effect June 1.

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From yesterday’s NY Times, one way Georgia might supplement its water supply in the future:

… a labyrinth of tubing and tanks that sucks in treated sewer water the color of dark beer from a sanitation plant next door, and first runs it through microfilters to remove solids. The water then undergoes reverse osmosis, forcing it through thin, porous membranes at high pressure, before it is further cleansed with peroxide and ultraviolet light to break down any remaining pharmaceuticals and carcinogens.

The result, Mr. Markus said, “is as pure as distilled water” and about the same cost as buying water from wholesalers.

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In keeping with my colleague’s earlier point about God helping those who help themselves, I present you with a new tool the city of Atlanta has rolled out to educate large-scale water users about conservation. The city’s Department of Watershed Management and P2AD, a division of the state’s Division of Natural Resources, hosted a workshop yesterday for some of the area’s largest water users, including the Atlanta Braves, Georgia Tech and Cousins Properties. It can be viewed in all its webcast glory here. I’ll go ahead and warn you that it’s very psychedelic, full of chat messages and an up-the-nose camera angle of the presenter. But it’s not just for your viewing pleasure — if you’re a small-business owner and looking to reduce your consumption and save cash, it’s worth the watch. The workshop is part of the city’s laudable effort to meet Mayor Shirley Franklin’s goal of a 10 percent reduction in water use by beefing up the infrastructure and helping large users scale back their consumption. And God respects those kinds of efforts.

Good work, Miss Mayor.

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WaterCrunch, an excellent blog that covers water shortages in the southeast United States, produced a graphic that shows the human animal’s thought process when it comes to thinking about water.

Most conflicts seems to follow a natural progression whether one realizes it or not. A couple of years ago someone showed me a version of the curve below as a tool for business negotiation. I adapted the curve to fit our current water scarcity concerns. While it is seems simple, it is very revealing. It shows when the most probable time for a compromise can be achieved.

It’s a great post as well. Check it out.

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The water crunch Georgia’s facing? The Associated Press writes that it’s becoming a national problem. The article provides a thorough rundown of where our fair nation stands in terms of providing a diminishing supply of water to a growing population.

In Georgia news regarding the water crisis: Bottled water sales are up, even though the people selling them are saying their water sources are secure. Alabama wants construction of a man-made lake in Cherokee County close to completion and sanctioned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to be halted, SnuggleScribe Jeffry Scott reports. Governors from the three states embroiled in the decades-old “Tri-State Water War” will meet Thursday in Washington. Gov. Sonny Perdue has ordered the state and permit holders to reduce their water use by 10 percent, and Alpharetta … come on, Alpharetta.

Click here to view a Washington Post story with an accompanying aerial photo that hammers home the low levels of Lake Lanier.

Conserve, folks. This drought may last awhile, and now’s a good time to evaluate just how much water you really need to get through the day.

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Mickey at AtlantaWaterShortage — a great resource devoted solely to the region’s water-supply shortage — notes that Lake Lanier showed its lowest decrease in water levels yesterday. Chalk it up to the rain, mostly, both adding some juice to the lake and motivating the Corps to decrease the releases from Buford Dam.

Also, the voice behind the South Carolina-based WaterCrunch blog was feeling a little guilty about not being under statewide watering restrictions like we are.

I live in South Carolina 20 miles from the Georgia state border in the Savannah basin. 20 miles away Georgia has an outdoor water ban. 20 miles away Georgians in the same watershed as me are counting drops of water. Yesterday, there was neither a voluntarily or mandatory ban on my family’s water use. I could wash my car, water the grass, or even bring out the slip n’ slide. I could even do it all the same time every day, every hour, and every minute.

That feeling changed yesterday with an announcement by his state’s governor asking all citizens to conserve.

Check out both for some good water info.

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