As Water Wars Continue, An Article to Remember
It’s been four weeks since the Georgia Environmental Protection Division declared level 4 watering restrictions in the northern third of the state. By now, I think everyone has realized that we’re truly in a drought situation, and counties and other water providers are struggling to figure out how to reduce consumption by 10% below traditionally low winter water usage.
At the state and federal level, officials are playing the blame game. Sonny Perdue is blaming the mussels in Florida; the Alabama and Florida Governors are making the case that they are legitimate water users, and even South Georgia is getting into the act, with the Valdosta Times saying,
“The wasteful ways of Atlantans continued through the past decade of severe drought in the state. The water restrictions meant little to them “up there” as they had plenty of water at the time, while rural Georgia and farmers were watching their crops burn in their fields, listening as Atlanta politicians who apparently do think their food originates in a grocery store passed policies designed to prevent them from accessing the water literally beneath their feet.”
I was reminded of an op-ed page that appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in July of 2006 by a photographer who went to Apalachicola Bay with a group of water experts to take pictures of the situation. The article, entitled “Lanier Not a Water Culprit” is no longer available online, so I went to the library to look it up on microfilm. Here are some of the key points the article made:
- With the water volume at Apalachicola Bay 13 times the water volume at Buford Dam, only a small portion comes from Lake Lanier.
- The endangered mussels are primarily in sloughs created when the river is running high; when the river runs lower, these sloughs are cut off, and eventually dry out. In order to help the sturgeon in the bay, water levels were kept artificially high, causing the mussels to migrate to the sloughs. Levels continued to be kept high in order to preserve the mussel habitat, a problem created by artificially manipulating the water flow to help the sturgeon.
- Agricultural use of spring water in South Georgia has been a bigger contributor to the lack of fresh water in the bay that is harming the oyster population.
It’s an interesting perspective on the water wars, and even though the article referred to conditions 15 months ago, the drought was present then, although not as well advertised. I can’t reproduce the entire article, but I will quote the last paragraph:
“There appears to be a very strong anti-Atlanta growth movement in Florida and, to a lesser extent in South Georgia and Alabama. If you cut off the water supply, you stop its growth. Lake Lanier, the mussels, sturgeon and oysters all are pawns in the game.”
It’s an interesting article, worth rereading before it goes down the memory hole.
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