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Tuesday, January 8, 2008
“Pool-less Summer”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s the gathering spot, the happening place.
Friday night movies. Themed dinner nights. July Fourth cookouts. Parties. Or no special reason at all.
It’s the swimming pool. My family practically lives at one during the summer time. And if you have young kids and a thin budget, yours probably do, too. Cheap, easy entertainment.
My Gwinnett neighborhood doesn’t have a neighborhood pool, so we joined the Mountain Creek pool. It’s located in a DeKalb neighborhood off Hugh Howell Road. It’s minutes from our house. Many of our friends either live there, or they’re people like us. We pay association fees for the right to enjoy the amenities and socialize. At the pool, everything happens.
Maybe not this summer, though.
You, like me, may have been taken aback by the headline on the front page of Saturday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Drought may outlaw pools,” it stated.
The staff-written story outlined the possibility that 2008 may be “The Summer Without Pools.” Four months ago, the state indefinitely banned most outdoor water use in North Georgia to conserve water. The ban will remain in effect if the state’s historic drought worsens or stays the same. That means thousands of public and private pools in metro Atlanta can’t be filled or have water added to them.
Of course, we might get enough rain between now and June to negate the need for the ban. Carol Couch, the head of the Environmental Protection Division, could grant an exemption to pools, but that would only serve to tick off entities that must still adhere to the ban. It’s not life-threatening to have a pool-less summer. It’s worse to titter on the fringes of running out of drinking water. Much blame has been laid on Mother Nature. The drought may be historic, but there’s a player in this water crisis that’s been just as dry: state leaders past and present.
A Dec. 12 Atlanta Journal-Constitution story detailed how Georgia’s water shortage was three decades in the making. It’s been fueled by false assurances of rainy years, state feuds and inaction. Potential solutions have died or gone uncompleted, the article showed.
“Drought-proof” regional reservoirs weren’t built. Dam plans were discarded. Georgia, Florida and Alabama engaged in a water war over withdrawals from Lake Lanier and Lake Allatoona. Environmentalists opposed solutions like new treatment plants and reservoirs.
One element has held steady in droughts past and present, though. Development. It’s drought-proof. The impact growth has on a dwindling water supply doesn’t get any consideration when projects are proposed in Gwinnett and other counties. Water doesn’t carry weight in building approvals.
So subdivisions and residential complexes continue to rise. Some have swimming pools, potential gathering spots, places to socialize.
How much those pools get used remains to be seen.
Right now, though, they can’t be much of a selling point.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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