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Friday, November 16, 2007
Perdue got less than he wanted, but today he’s a glass-half-full kind of guy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The federal government began reducing the flow of water out of Lake Lanier on Friday, and officials gathered to cheer their own efforts in securing more drinking water for Atlanta.
But for all the comity and happy talk about cooperation, one painful truth shone through: Gov. Sonny Perdue got far less than he was promised two weeks ago in a meeting with Bush Administration officials, the governors of Alabama and Florida and at least two federal agencies.
The feds told Sonny that they would reduce the flow from 37,403 gallons a second to 31,044 gallons - reducing the overall release from Lanier by about 16 percent. But a report that came out of that meeting, and released Friday, makes no provision for that deep of a drop.
The report recommended that the flow be reduced to 35,500 gallons a second. At best, it could be cut to 33,000. But even that best-case scenario cheats Sonny out of 2,000 gallons of water every second.
“The hope is that we won’t have to go there,” Sam Hamilton of the Fish and Wildlife Service said in reference to reduction promised Sonny. Still, he said, Fish and Wildlife will draw up a new plan should the drought take a greater toll.
In a telephone conference call from Montreal, where he’s on a trade mission, Perdue didn’t show any disappointment.
“It’s really the confirmation and affirmation of really good news for us,” the governor said. “If we don’t get the needed rains, I’m optimistic that both the Corps and Fish and Wildlife will realize that we need to take even further steps.”
Getting less than they asked for wasn’t the only indignity dealt the governor and other state officials, who have been pressing to keep more of Lanier’s water rather than sending it downstream to Alabama and Florida.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Schroedel, southeast commander for the Corps of Engineers, again spanked Georgia for claiming that the federal government would rather send the water to endangered species downstream than allow the people of Atlanta to use it. It was mussels vs. man, Perdue and other Georgia officials claimed.
Schroedel took a personal moment in the joint press conference in Atlanta to raise the issue himself. “This is not just because of endangered species,” he said, rattling off all the needs Florida and Alabama have for the Lanier water — stuff like cooling nuclear reactors and hydrating people.
He also expressed distaste for Perdue’s argument that Atlanta was only months away from running out of water, and admonished the media for repeating it.
“There’s no such thing as the supply left in Lake Lanier,” Schroedel declared, adding that the lake level changes every day. “We still have a lot of water in Lake Lanier.”
The governor said he and his people would have to study the new Lanier flow rates before they could estimate how many days are now left before we all have to go showerless.
Dvorscak ousted as Fulton County GOP chairman
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fulton County Republicans have settled an eight-month fight over the chairmanship of their party by ousting incumbent Mike Dvorscak and electing Shawn Hanley by a narrow vote of 122 to 119.
Dvorczak was re-elected last spring during a county convention that the state executive committee declared to be chaotic and rife with “irregularities.”
The second vote was conducted by mail. Ninety-two percent of delegates to the earlier convention participated, and votes were counted at the state GOP headquarters. Results were announced today.
Hanley assumes the chairmanship immediately.
In case you need reminding about what this fight was all about, the Fulton County GOP is the only Republican chapter in the state with a $2 million endowment.
Next time, everybody plan to bring their voter ID.
At least one Gingrich vote is headed for Rudy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’ve picked up word that Randy Evans, the Atlanta attorney who stood by Newt Gingrich’s side while the former U.S. House speaker contemplated his run for the White House, has signed on with the Rudy Giuliani campaign.
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Go for the politics, but stay for the music
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich will make what we think is his first campaign appearance in Georgia this weekend.
He’s to show up in Columbus on Sunday as part of a three day protest by anti-war activists. Their target is the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, once called the School of the Americas.
The Indigo Girls will be there, too.
That fire in the Mideast is getting low. Throw some gasoline on it.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thank goodness that, in his post-candidacy period, Newt Gingrich has decided to mellow. This was his money line during a Thursday speech to the Jewish National Fund in Atlanta:
“Iran produces 60 percent of its own gasoline. It produces lots of crude oil, but only has one refinery. It imports 40 percent of its gasoline. The entire 60 percent is produced at one huge refinery.”
The former U.S. House speaker then explained how, in 1982, the Reagan administration secretly sold the Soviet Union faulty equipment for a gasoline pipeline, causing it to blow up. We hadn’t heard that one before.
But it led Gingrich to this:
“In the 28 years since the Iranians declared war on us, in the six years since 9/11, in the months since General Petraeus said publicly they’re killing young Americans, we have not been able to take down one refinery — covertly, quietly, without overt war.
“We have not been able to figure out how to use the most powerful navy in the world to simply stop the tankers, and say - ‘Look, if you want to kill young Americans, you’ll have to walk to the battlefield. But you’re not going to ride in a car. Your not going to have gasoline.’”
Go here for details.
