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Water Wars
Author: BobR    Date: 02/08/2008 13:24:56

The water crisis in the southeast (and Atlanta in particular) was in the news last year when it was announced that Atlanta had less than 3 months of water left. The 30 year growth boom had bumped up against Mother Nature, and Mother Nature wasn't budging. The skimpy system of man-made lakes that Atlanta uses for water was tapped out (sorry ), and the drought had not refilled them.

Pictures like these really tell the story:
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa213/FourFreedoms/Allatoona2007.jpg


http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa213/FourFreedoms/LanierNov2007.jpg

(note: That tree stump used to be under water)

So in typical GA government fashion, a band-aid approach was applied: water restrictions. Non-essential water use was restricted, then prohibited. The selfish were the first to cry "but my lawn!!". Then the businesses that use water started trying to lay claim to what was left. Something had to be done. So our governer did what any true leader would do.

He prayed...

On the statehouse steps, of all places.

An lo and behold, it DID rain. It was a skimpy little bit, but it rained. Of course, the weather report said it was going to rain before the prayor vigil, so Sonny timed that one right (with a little help from the meteorologist).

Over the last month or two, we've gotten even more rain, enough to forestall the crisis for a while. Does that mean the reservoirs are full? No. Does that mean we are out of the woods? No. Does that mean people think we can go back to the "old ways" of selfish water usage?

Of course.

Sonny wants to relax the water restrictions
Summer's not sunk after all. The governor wants to give swimmers and backyard gardeners water.

Gov. Sonny Perdue on Wednesday offered a reprieve from the near-total ban on outdoor watering to the landscape industry, gardeners and thousands of neighborhood swimming pool associations, swim teams and private pool owners.

"Swim, kids, swim," Perdue exhorted at an afternoon news conference in his office.

If local governments agree, pool-filling will be allowed and home and business owners will be able to hand-water landscaping and flower gardens for 25 minutes a day, between midnight and 10 a.m., on a three-day-a-week schedule. Watering with sprinklers would still be banned, except for watering newly installed landscapes.

How responsible is it to ease restrictions when the reservoirs are still at a critically low level? Where is that water going to come from?

From TN of course. If you can't make it rain at home, you can steal the water from the neighbors. GA lawmakers want to redraw the state lines to make part of the TN river part of GA:
Desperate for water amid a historic drought, some Georgia lawmakers are trying to reopen an 1818 border dispute with Tennessee.

They have set their sights on a stretch of the 652-mile long Tennessee River that flows tantalizingly close to the Georgia line — and by some historic accounts, should be within Georgia's borders.

"It's never too late to right a wrong," said Georgia state Sen. David Shafer, R-Duluth.

Shafer's Senate resolution says a flawed survey in 1818 mistakenly marked Georgia's border one mile south of the 35th parallel — and thus excluded the Tennessee River from Georgia's reach.

There is a reason thirsty lawmakers are eyeing the river: It has a flow about 15 times greater than the river feeding Atlanta.

Why do I have visions of the Hatfields and the McCoys?... Armed rednecks jealously guarding their water with muskets and flintlocks... It's the north -vs- the south in a whole new civil war!

Meanwhile, I keep watching the faucet, waiting for the day when nothing but air and rusty mud sputters out. That's leadership - Republican style...

 

172 comments (Latest Comment: 02/09/2008 03:02:17 by livingonli)
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