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Monday, August 25, 2008
FairTax excerpts posted on CNN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Again, for those interested, CNN.com has posted two excerpts of a recent coffee-shop discussion on the infamous FairTax, hosted by Rick Sanchez and including Neal Boortz and myself. It was recorded as part of a CNN show that appeared Sunday night.
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What if Atlanta just disappeared?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the morality tale spun by public officials in Florida and Alabama, big, bad overdeveloped metro Atlanta is sucking up all the water out of the Chattahoochee watershed, leaving little or none for downstream mussels, oysters, farmers, power plants and those all-important barge operators.
The story has little or no basis in fact, and no support in the data. But it does sound good, and it casts metro Atlanta as a useful villain that officials in other states can claim to be fighting on behalf of their constituents.
To understand why the story is false, or at the very least overblown, it’s important to understand the distinction between water use and water consumption.
Imagine that we withdraw 100 gallons of water from a river, stream or lake, use that water, and then treat it and return the same 100 gallons to its source. In that theoretical case, there is no net loss of water available for downstream users. No water is consumed.
However, if we withdraw 100 gallons but return only 60 gallons — using the rest to water lawns and landscaping and golf courses, for example — we have consumed 40 gallons of water that is not available downstream.
Metro Atlanta does use a substantial amount of water, and that amount has increased as the metro area has grown. That’s undeniable. But in 2007, according to state figures, 60 percent of that water was used, treated and put back into the watershed. Our consumption of water, versus our use of water, was relatively small.
In fact, James Hairston, a professor at Auburn University and a nationally recognized expert in irrigation and water use, puts our water consumption in a context that is rather startling.
In general, Hairston says, an acre of rural land with no development — an acre covered with trees, brush, kudzu and other natural vegetation — consumes more water than an acre of developed land.
How is that possible?
Natural vegetation consumes a lot of water, Hairston explained. Rainfall that would otherwise make its way into a stream or creek is sucked up out of the ground by trees and other plants, and then lost into the air through transpiration. As I found later, a single large tree can pull several hundred gallons of water out of the ground on a hot day, and then evaporate that water through its leaves.
That’s several hundred gallons that will not make its way into streams, creeks and rivers for use downstream. It is water that is consumed.
So let me get this straight, I asked Hairston. If metro Atlanta didn’t exist — if instead this entire region were returned to undeveloped countryside covered with trees and natural vegetation, as many of its critics would apparently prefer — this region would take more water from downstream users than it does today as a major city?
“Exactly,” Hairston said.
On an annual basis, Hairston said, undeveloped land will also consume more water than irrigated farmland, because irrigation occurs only during the growing season, and only to supplement rainfall, while natural vegetation consumes water all year long.
Here’s another way to measure metro Atlanta’s impact on water supplies in Florida, where the city is blamed by some for cutting the flow of much-needed fresh water into Apalachicola Bay.
Metro water consumption is always highest in the summer, and in July 2006 metro Atlanta consumed an average of 287 million gallons a day from the Chattahoochee watershed. That sounds like a lot. However, farmers in the Flint River basin — which also flows into Apalachicola Bay — drew an average of 250 million gallons a day from surface water and another 950 million gallons a day from the shallow underlying aquifer to irrigate crops. Almost all of that was consumptive use.
Again, that was in 2006. Since then, metro Atlanta’s consumptive use has dropped considerably. Water use has dropped by roughly 20 percent, and water consumption has no doubt dropped even further, since much of that reduction has come from less outdoor watering, a highly consumptive use.
Metro Atlanta does have a responsibility to use its water resources more wisely. While we’ve made progress, we have more to do. Nonetheless, some of our critics in other states insist that our only option is to lock the gates against newcomers and growth.
And as Hairston put it, “That is so stupid it doesn’t even make sense.”
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