Lake Lanier drought pictures

Actually we have many tertiary recovery plants in Gwinnett, DeKalb and Cobb counties all revocering water and returning it to the river system in pristine condition. Indeed Gwinnett returns a lot of it's water to Lake Lanier itself. Further, the entire metro area has reduced water usage by more than 15% annually. So let's put the reclamation issue to rest. We're doing it.

The fact is, I've provided figures, from the ACE websites and numbers which are irrefutable, and all you guys have come up with is, "it seems like", "I noticed" and "what the hell are you doing". Numbers create a dilema for which you Floridians have no answer, and I doubt you can provide one. When you want to deal in FACTS, call me.
 
I drove through Atlanta over the holidays and it was a sad sight for any boater. Wish we could send some of ours down your way to help out, fortunately our pool has not been affected much. Some of our more remote lakes see the kind of drop you have yearly but are prepared accordingly and mostly consist of smaller trailerable boats.
 
Not to feed fuel to the fire but during our christmas vacation in Florida, there was little evidence of any water shortage judging by the green lawns being fed by sprinklers.
 
If I could only get thhem to build a lock and canal system between the TN River and Lake Allatoona. It might not fix the water problems in ATL but it would at least put my house 10 minutes away to a viable connection to international waters!
 
SR My lawn is green but it uses reclaimed water. did you ask??
 
So does metro Atlanta only we return it to the lake where it is shipped off to Florida.
Gwinnett County alone reclaims 40 million gallons a day. So get off the reclamation thing. We're doing it. You still can't account for the numbers on the ACE site.

http://www.gwinnettcounty.com/cgi-bin/gwincty/egov/ep/gcbrowse.do?
channelId=-35846&channelPage=%2Fep%2Fchannel%2Fdefault.jsp&pageTypeId=536880236
 
"at what cost?"

If you want it bad enough you'll pay the cost. Otherwise you don't want it.

My lawn is NOT green because it does NOT get watered, period. Maybe someday God will do it; till then it just waits.
 
In the last 2 months, I've driven past lakes in Central GA managed by GA Power that were above full pool, and in AL that were only down a couple of feet. These areas are in a drought as well, but their akes are above or near full pool.

Lake Lanier maintained the "minimum legal" required flow downstream to protect endangered species long after the natural flow would have been cut in half due to reduced rainfall. The key to managing the water levels is to balance the flow taking the whole watershed (both above and below the dams) into account. ie if it is raining in south GA/AL or the FL PAnhandle, then the flow could be reduced at any dams north of the rainfall. The problem is the Corp hasn't managed the dam that way until recently. They just let a lot of water out every day because the EPA said they have to.

There are numerous documented cases of the Corp mismanaging the lakes. I Dec 2005 they replaced some flow monitors at Bufford Dam on Lake Lanier, and let the lake fall over 2 feet more than they thought because the gauge was miscalibrated. People were calling saying the lake was lower than they were reporting, and it only took them 4 months (until April 2006) to get off their butts and go look at the lake and they realized the people calling were right. That was the begining of the reduced lake levels from which the lake has not yet recoverd.

There are lots of similar instances.
 
The corp mismanaging a lake? Nahhhhh....

The diversion dam that diverts water from the White river to fill Lake Tapps was damaged in storms in Nov. 2006. It is an old structure with plywood panels that divert the water. To my knowledge, because of foot dragging and bureaucracy it has still not been fixed. It can only divert half the water it should. The local paper reported that it would probably not take more than a couple of days to fix the damage. The lake is supposed to be full by Memorial Day every year, and last year it was not full until the end of July. PATHETIC!
 
The topic got me wondering how significant the local reclaimed water program was to the overall water useage. It turns out that 38% of all water used is reclaimed. Without the reclaimed water nothing would be green in the county, just dead after so many years of low rainfall.
The new desal plant is shared by several counties so it is not exclusivly available to my county but these numbers show that its 25 million gallons per day capacity is a significant amount and more than 50% of my counties potable requirements.

From the county water dept:
“The potable water provided during the fiscal year 2005-2006 to areas that are contributors to our sewer system, was 41.99 million gallons (annual average daily flow) per day.
The reclaimed water produced by our two wastewater treatment facilities during the same period of time was 28.71 million gallon per day (annual average daily flow).”
 
In yesterday's paper they had an article about Georgia doing something they've never done before. Develop a water management plan. Florida has had a management plan for decades and so has Alabama. Georgia has always used what they wanted with no concern for the future growth. Maybe now Georgia will develop a plan that will head off problems before they happen.

This argument reminds me of the old cowboy movies where the upland owner would damn off the creek to water his cattle with no reguard to the guys down river. The cattleman up river always got shot and the damn blown up.
 
We are keeping our lawns green to keep the oxygen levels up so they don't deplete like the water levels in all the lakes.
 
Just keep this fact in the back of your mind while discussing this topic, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers designed and built the levees that "protected" New Orleans. And you expect them to manage a lake level??
 
Well,
We went and looked at a boat for sale this weekend over at the marina where I originally bought my Silverton. Here are some pictures from February or so of 2007 (i.e. this past winter) when we did the haul out during the survey (is she not one of the prettiest boats you've ever seen???):
DSCF7916.jpg


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This one was taken by me standing on the floating dock next to the travel lift:
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And here is a picture of that same travel lift, taken this past Saturday afternoon:
holidaylift.jpg


Driving through the marina we noticed someone forgot to move their boat:
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quote:
Originally posted by L. Keith

Just keep this fact in the back of your mind while discussing this topic, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers designed and built the levees that "protected" New Orleans. And you expect them to manage a lake level??

Click to expand...


???????????????

What is your point?

G
 
Woodsong, I'm sure glad you keep your wife longer then you keep your boats! Will you ever be satisfied? LOL
 
I took a look at my marina today on Google earth. The images seemed quite old. There was little evidence of the drought. For those of you on lake Lanier take a look at the Google earth images and what your marina looks like today. For my marina there is a night and day difference. Is there any way to tell when Google earth aerial shots were taken?
 
Looking at Google Earth and photos I have taken of the marsh behind my house the Google view is somewhere around 4 to 5 years old. The marsh grass all died and started coming back in 03 or 04. June of 03, no grass just mud, Sept of 04 there are spots of green marsh grass and the Google view shows just that.
 
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