Signs of potential progress in the ATL’s water crisis
Asked about the water-war summit scheduled for today with his counterparts in Alabama and Florida, Gov. Sonny Perdue tried to lower expectations.
“I would hope that we [governors] have a group hug and come out of that meeting with an agreement,” Perdue said last week. But those seemingly optimistic words were undercut by his “I’m-pulling-your-leg” smile, suggesting that a deal was only slightly less likely than the highly implausible group hug.
Nonetheless, the fact that a meeting is taking place at all is progress.
Presumably, the meeting was scheduled because exploratory discussions among lawyers and staff for Perdue, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Alabama Gov. Bob Riley found enough common ground to believe it would be productive.
Last week’s meeting of Georgia’s Water Contingency Task Force also produced grounds for encouragement, although you had to look a little hard to find it.
The task force — dominated by state business leaders — was appointed by Perdue to recommend ways to respond to U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson. Last summer, Magnuson told Georgia that unless it reaches a water-sharing agreement with Alabama and Florida by July 2012, metro Atlanta will lose access to hundreds of millions of gallons a day from Lake Lanier.
After studying the challenge, the task force has concluded that the state has no means to meet that deadline. Although aggressive water-conservation measures can make a contribution, nothing the state can do by 2012 can replace Lake Lanier.
By 2015, Lake Lanier could be replaced as a water source only by an aggressive, highly expensive and environmentally risky set of measures that would be difficult at best to implement.
And by 2020, aggressive water conservation, reservoir expansions and a major leak-repair program could together close the gap between water supply and demand without Lake Lanier.
Grim as it sounds, that’s actually a road map to a solution. When Magnuson set his 2012 deadline, he did so to create a sense of crisis among Georgia leaders. He clearly succeeded.
But the reality is that come 2012, no judge is going to leave hundreds of thousands of Georgians high and dry, without access to water, while Lake Lanier sits a few miles away. That’s just not going to happen, especially if the state can show that it has acted in good will to address the problem. So the tough conservation measures likely to be recommended by the task force will have to be implemented as soon as possible by the Legislature.
As Perdue acknowledged last week, the task-force findings have also mapped out the limits of what is possible, which could prove useful in his negotiations with Alabama and Florida.
“We want to be fair and share with our neighbors,” Perdue said Friday, “but there are physical limits to what we can do.”
So let’s review:
It is impossible for metro Atlanta to replace Lake Lanier as a water source by 2012, which means that federal judges will have to make accommodations.
The more aggressively Georgia moves toward conservation and reuse between now and 2012, the more sympathy it is likely get from the judiciary.
The mind-set of Georgia’s leadership has changed significantly. As Perdue said last week, “Conservation shouldn’t be a word of sacrifice, but a word of honor.”
Given all that, here’s the outline of a possible settlement:
Metro Atlanta gets limited access to Lake Lanier, perhaps by capping future withdrawals at 2008 or 2006 levels. That would ease the metro region’s challenge while also addressing concerns of Florida, Alabama and even downstream Georgians that a booming metro region will eventually suck the Southeast dry.
It would also mean that water to supply any future growth in metro Atlanta would have to be “produced” through conservation and wise use. The task force’s report shows us how.
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65 comments Add your comment
USinUK
December 15th, 2009
8:02 am
damn. I got nuttin.
Mrs. Godzilla
December 15th, 2009
8:02 am
“Conservation shouldn’t be a word of sacrifice, but a word of honor”
Oh that our generation could make that real….
Mrs. Godzilla
December 15th, 2009
8:02 am
Oh and
Happy Bill Of Rights Day.
Jenifer
December 15th, 2009
8:03 am
Porky’s on the job.
Peadawg
December 15th, 2009
8:03 am
If Tim Tebow and Urban Myer lose the Sugar Bowl like they did the SECCG, they can cry us a river that flows from Tennessee all the way through Florida. Go Dawgs!
Gale
December 15th, 2009
8:03 am
Hmmm, maybe we could cut back on rampent development?
I Report :-) You Whine :-( mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
December 15th, 2009
8:09 am
OK, so maybe it will be alright after all.
What’s our next hysteria, sharing oxygen with Tennessee?
Iran is Right
December 15th, 2009
8:11 am
Since Alabama and Florida appear to hold all the high cards in these negotiations, I suggest Georgia do the only thing that has a chance of winning: An all out attack on those two states. Sonny needs to meet with all Georgia corporate leaders, to issue a joint statement that these corporations will be completely pulling out of Florida and Alabama unless those two States surrender to Georgia. Sonny also needs to order the State Police to stop and investigate in depth all cars with Florida or Alabama tags, to identify citizens of those states who are living illegally in Georgia without re tagging their auto’s, and the drug smugglers. Sonny also needs to issue a proclamation that in the case of a hurricane or other emergency in Alabama or Florida, all Georgia hotels are authorized to immediately raise their rates by a factor of five, and a special gasoline tax of 5 dollars per gallon will be immediately implemented on all passenger cars and trucks from Florida and Alabama. Let us all make war on Florida and Alabama.
Peadawg
December 15th, 2009
8:11 am
Aaahhh, yes. Good ‘ol Tennessee. 6 million and only 6,000 last names. Good ‘ol Orange Hillbillies.
godless heathen
December 15th, 2009
8:11 am
The metro ATL area had just the right number of people the day I arrived. Everyone who came after that represents excessive growth.
USinUK
December 15th, 2009
8:11 am
“What’s our next hysteria – sharing oxygen with Tennessee?”
home of Nashvegas and Memphis??? oh, heck no
Alabama … well, that’s another story …
I Report :-) You Whine :-( mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
December 15th, 2009
8:12 am
WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) – The U.S. government must craft a plan next year to get its ballooning debt under control or face possible panic in financial markets, a bipartisan panel of budget experts said in a report on Monday.
I think we’ve moved beyond the panic and have entered the realm of stupidity and/or intentional harm.
Figuring out which it is would be the key.
USinUK
December 15th, 2009
8:13 am
IiR – you forgot GA’s number one bit of ammunition: withhold their coca-cola supplies (what? you think they’ll convert to Pepsi??? blech)
Paul
December 15th, 2009
8:16 am
Gov Perdue actually does some governin’?
Wow. I suppose if the crisis is serious and imminent enough, anything can happen.
Credit where it’s due -
Outhouse Go-Kart
December 15th, 2009
8:16 am
Seems Fulton County has almost doubled my water rate. Time to move and perhaps open a few hydrants on the way out…tee hee.
Normal
December 15th, 2009
8:16 am
Maybe, just maybe Sonny should take that stimulus money after all. Fix what’s broken, create some jobs. Sounds like a plan to me.
USinUK, from downstairs, yep this is going to be a boring one.
has all ready erased borders. Dollars, Euros, Yen, Yuan, all electronic money. No more borders, just URL’s…haha.
and as to being absorbed by the EU, shoot…Gore’s other invention, the internet
TnGelding
December 15th, 2009
8:18 am
Can ATL continue to draw water from the Hootch below Lake Lanier? Or divert water above the lake? This is a no-brainer. The water belongs to Georgia. Alabama gets anything we don’t use. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t conserve and take other constructive measures.
USinUK
December 15th, 2009
8:19 am
Normal –
“Gore’s other invention, the internet has all ready erased borders. Dollars, Euros, Yen, Yuan, all electronic money. No more borders, just URL’s…haha”
weeeeeelllll, you DO have the .co.uk / .co.it / .co.fr / .co.de boarders to contend with …
the benefit of being absorbed by the EU – the US will finally have some GOOD cheese on their grocery shelves, not that plastic crap that pretends it’s cheese.
Normal
December 15th, 2009
8:20 am
Anyway, I said in earlier posts about this water thing, the original surveys of Mason Dixon had North Georgia starting at the Tennessee River. So it’s really very simple… INVADE CHATTANOOGA!!!
USinUK
December 15th, 2009
8:21 am
I’m tellin’ ya, normal … withhold their coca-cola deliveries – you’ll have them on their knees within a week
TnGelding
December 15th, 2009
8:21 am
I Report
You Whine 
mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
December 15th, 2009
8:12 am
And why would he/they want to do either? You’re delusional. But keep it up. You’re our best resource, other than water from the Hootch. Can’t stay. Have a nice day, everyone.
Normal
December 15th, 2009
8:24 am
Outhouse Go-Kart
December 15th, 2009
8:16 am
Leave Fulton if you want but don’t come to Woodstock…I’m trying to make it our first Socialistic town. The first thing is to change the name of The Right Wing Cafe, to The Peoples Cafe. Power to the People!
Whatever
December 15th, 2009
8:27 am
The brilliant AJC, tagged this column with the “MOMania” link on the front page. Way to go!
Taxpayer
December 15th, 2009
8:27 am
Well, I loaded up the truck and moved to higher ground many years back. Gwinnett County just weren’t the place to be. There was no black gold, no Texas tea. Only promises of a better way through never-ending growth and expansion that panned out but in all the wrong ways. That was the Republican dream. The dream that turned out to be nothing more than a cheap takeoff of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Now, it’s payback time.
Outhouse Go-Kart
December 15th, 2009
8:31 am
Normal
December 15th, 2009
8:24 am
LOL…probably Canton where the brigades will assemble and launch and invasion on Woodstock and its socialistic ways.
Outhouse Go-Kart
December 15th, 2009
8:33 am
Lived in Gwinnett for a number of years and once GCCT or GCTT or whatever it is, public trans, fired up the entire area around Gwinnett Place Mall went strait into the toilet. So much so its now referred to as Ghetto Place Mall!
Iran is Right
December 15th, 2009
8:34 am
USinUK – Withholding coca cola won’t work in Alabama, they live on RC Cola and Moon Pies. We could all boycott the Mecerdes Benz products made in Alabama. Nothing else of value comes out of that worthless state, and that includes cindy lou.
Outhouse Go-Kart
December 15th, 2009
8:34 am
USinUK
December 15th, 2009
8:19 am
What have you got against Kraft American Singles? They go well with a bottle of Arbor Mist Lemon/Blackberry.
Outhouse Go-Kart
December 15th, 2009
8:35 am
Mercedes Benz / Alabama. Hmmm…something just isnt right.
USinUK
December 15th, 2009
8:38 am
outhouse – “What have you got against Kraft American Singles?” next to velveeta, KAS is probably one of the worst abominations of dairy products (right up there with laughing cow) … I think that if cows knew that’s where their milk was going, they’d commit seppuku from the shame of it all …
“Arbor Mist Lemon/Blackberry” – goodgawd, that sounds like something college students across the land embrace.
rightofcenter
December 15th, 2009
8:38 am
Ah, Normal, we did take stimulus money, and a lot of it. Where u been?
Was Perdue really the first to come up with that line about sacrifice and honor? That is really a world class quote. Hats off to him if he did.
Taxpayer
December 15th, 2009
8:41 am
The true irony in this is that the believers in all things “trickle down” now have to retrofit to low flow toilets. They just can’t get a break!
Isis
December 15th, 2009
8:46 am
Why can’t we do the “Rodney King.” Why can’t we just get along. Was sharing ever a big American value?
Normal
December 15th, 2009
8:58 am
Outhouse Go-Kart
December 15th, 2009
8:33 am
I’ll meet you at the People’s Cafe…
Gale
December 15th, 2009
8:58 am
USinUK, be fair, they make some fine cheese in Tillamook.
Scout
December 15th, 2009
8:59 am
Yes ……….. it’s called RAIN !
Bosch
December 15th, 2009
8:59 am
Water – smater – I’ve got mine – so what’s your problem losers?
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
December 15th, 2009
9:00 am
Well, we would have plenty of water if you just do like us rednecks. You got to look the problem in the eye. Let’s face it, all of you took a bath within the past 24 hrs. Now, admit it, you did. What a awful waste of water. The water that goes into one bath would be enough for people in 10 houses to cook and drink with.
So if everybody just took a bath once a month, the problem would be solved. Don’t worry about how you smell. If everybody skips a bath for a month, everybody will smell the same and no one will notice. Sure, there will be a run on WalMart for white socks and underwear on the 1st of the month, but that can be solved.
You’re welcome. Glad I could help. Have a good day everybody.
Normal
December 15th, 2009
9:00 am
rightofcenter
December 15th, 2009
8:38 am
Ah, Normal, we did take stimulus money, and a lot of it. Where u been?
Where’d it go? How come I don’t see…oh wait a minute, they filled some pot holes with it, didn’t they…
USinUK
December 15th, 2009
9:01 am
Gale –
“they make some fine cheese in Tillamook”
okay. I gotta ask. where the heck is Tillamook? (sounds like a kind of snow boot: “what do you think? they’re the new Tillamooks with the sheepskin lining”)
Normal
December 15th, 2009
9:04 am
What have you got against Kraft American Singles?
They probably aren’t even made in America anymore. Would you still eat them if they were named Kraft Chinese Singles….
USinUK
December 15th, 2009
9:07 am
“Would you still eat them if they were named Kraft Chinese Singles…”
mmmm … now with extra melamine-y goodness in every slice …
Mrs. Godzilla
December 15th, 2009
9:10 am
In defense of American made cheese….
There’s a little food store in Youth or Jersey GA….not quite sure…
on the counter is always a wheel of local “red rind” cheese.
Don’t know what’s in it, don’t care…..a hunk of that and a crisp red apple are marvelous.
Kamchak
December 15th, 2009
9:13 am
Kraft Chinese Singles….wrapped in plastic with the epicanthic fold.
Chuck
December 15th, 2009
9:14 am
lets get real here water that falls and is stored in georgia belongs to georgia look at a map of alabama and see all the lakes they have
i do not hear any sharing going on with their neighbors
it is our damn water if it lays in georgia
so kiss my ass alabama and florida
Call it like it is.
December 15th, 2009
9:16 am
My first thought would be to lets play a football game for it, but then I remember how bad the Athens pupplies got pounded this year. Not only would we have to default to Alabama and Florida, we would have to throw Tennessee in there to. Hmmmm didnt they beat some dance school from Arizona? Maybe we can have water shipped from there.
Kamchak
December 15th, 2009
9:21 am
My first thought would be to lets play a futbol game for it…
fyt
We could call it the Water Cup,
AmVet
December 15th, 2009
9:24 am
Outhouse, my condolences on having lived in Gwinnett. It must be similar to living in purgatory with gridlocked traffic! (Ditto Cobb.)
Mrs. G, as early as in the 1960s, water (and soil) conservation was a HUGE issue with farmers, ranchers, etc. Most are not aware that the Ogallala Aquafer may effectively dry up in as little as 25 years. (ask the guys in north Texas why they no longer pump from it.) And it is 175,000 square miles in size!
The bulk of uneducated Americans will blame the “government” for these problems whenever possible, of course. But the real issue is that the “free market” insists on using 1950s technology and attitudes towards our limited resources. Oh, that and “selling” at give away prices the assets that belong to “we the people” to corporations that then turn around and gouge Uncle Sam.
Brilliant.
People bitch about gasoline prices and availability, but start running out of usable water and watch what the Reagan-taught-screw-everybody-else-me-firsters do…
USinUK
December 15th, 2009
9:25 am
Kam –
“We could call it the Water Cup”
given it’s between GA, TN and FL, shouldn’t that be the Dixie Cup?
Kamchak
December 15th, 2009
9:27 am
USinUK
Wish I’d thought of that!
Call it like it is.
December 15th, 2009
9:27 am
Okay, I have it solved. Now think about this before you comment. How many of us really go to Rome? Lets dam up the Coosa river, flood Rome, problem solved. I mean Rome is close enough to Alabama anyway that they could just move over there. No great loss then Atlanta would have pleanty of water from the Rome reservoir.
Man I should write for the AJC.
USinUK
December 15th, 2009
9:28 am
Kam – you set it up for the alley-oop
Al Bundy
December 15th, 2009
9:29 am
This water issue has only been a problem since Sonny came into office. Glad to see him working on it in his last year. What was he doing all this time?
Taxpayer
December 15th, 2009
9:31 am
I’m thinking about converting back to Republicanism and their trickle-down philosophy. From up here, it sounds good. First rule of trickle down: Don’t fight gravity. It’ll just drag you down.
Southern Comfort
December 15th, 2009
9:45 am
HEY!!! Lay off Alabama. tee hee hee…
Can’t dam up Rome either, ’cause I got a house up there.
Georgia needs to invest in desalinazation. Let Tech work the technology and then sell it to Alabama and Florida. May as well make money off of them if they want to argue about water. A 2 year public works project to “create jobs” could be to install a pumping system to move water from Savannah/Brunswick throughout the state. You get jobs and water both.
Or we could always truck in snow from Alaska and Canada. hehehehe
Bet-u-didn't know
December 15th, 2009
9:50 am
It is really Metro Atlanta -v- Alabama, Florida and the rest of Georgia–only the rest of Georgia does not seem to realize it.
The proof is a letter from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources dated March 29, 1988 which says in part: “The Flint River and its tributaries will be the primary source of drinking water in the future for the South Metro area. In order to protect the quality of the Flint River Basin for future and current water supplies, the Environmental Protection Division will not approve and new or expanded wastewater discharges (beyond that which the Environmental Protection Division has permitted, approved, or committed to) in the Flint River Basin upstream of the Flint River at the Crescent (near Molena in Pike County).”
wreckmaniac
December 15th, 2009
10:01 am
Just blame it all on Bush.
wreckmaniac
December 15th, 2009
10:04 am
Seriously,fill me in. Why dosen’t Alabama and FL just purchase a thousand acres south of Atlanta and build their own reservoirs ???
This is too simple. So I guess that “politics” makes this impossible.
Osama Rubenstein
December 15th, 2009
10:06 am
You defined the real problem. The court will not enforce its own decision.
Iran is Right
December 15th, 2009
10:18 am
Georgia needs a way to inflict pain on Florida and Alabama if we expect to win our fair share of the water. Think people, find a way to hurt them.
Outhouse Go-Kart
December 15th, 2009
10:25 am
The only tranparency with the kenyan is with his head. Its mostly empty.
Joey
December 15th, 2009
10:27 am
Yes conservation, both by reduced consumption and by increased storage (building more reservoirs), is critical. But I continue to believe that the best long-range answer for metro-Atlanta and the downstream areas is the Tennessee River near Guntersville, Alabama.
One pumping station with two raw-water lines. One line discharging into the Lake Allatoona Basin the other discharging into the Lanier Basin. Water would be pumped from Guntersville Lake only when one or both of these metro lakes are at some agreed level below normal pool (say 4′ for Allatoona and 6′ for Lanier).
At a pump rate of 2 million-gallons-per-day the impact on the flow of the Tennessee and the pool elevation of Guntersville Lake would be negligible.
Benefit to Alabama is that the ACT and the ACF basins would always have a charged Lanier and Allatoona able release water at any needed rate.
Jay
December 15th, 2009
10:28 am
Tillamook’s a little town on the north Oregon coast, USinUK. I used to live there as a kid; beautiful, lush green valley, with lots of rain. Perfect for dairy cows, and thus for cheese. Touring the cheese factory was a standard school field trip, largely because there was nothing else to tour within driving distance.
Although one day we did take a field trip to the Salem Statesman-Journal, which is when I decided to work in newspapers. That seemed to be our career choices at the time: Newspapers, or cheesemaking. (That’s the name of the high school team, by the way: The Tillamook Cheesemakers.)
Disgusted
December 15th, 2009
10:44 am
Georgia needs a way to inflict pain on Florida and Alabama if we expect to win our fair share of the water. Think people, find a way to hurt them.
We’ll never hurt them if we keep sending the Puppies to play their football teams. Maybe Georgia Tech or the new program at Georgia State would stand a better chance.
Donna Hoffman
January 8th, 2010
8:15 am
The leaders should be able to meet at an agreement that would benefit all of the concerned, not the few. Lake Lanier should not only be the matter of dispute. How about those households, industries, farms etc. that depends on the water supply. They should have a voice to be heard too.