DEL.ICIO.USPublished on: 04/21/08
There's a sense across metro Atlanta that the worst may be behind us, that the extraordinary drought that transfixed the region last fall and winter has eased and that things are finally getting back to normal.
That is a dangerous, dangerous assumption.
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Yes, we've had rain. Yes, Lake Allatoona is full again and levels at Lake Lanier have been rising. Last October, more than a quarter of Georgia was experiencing a D4, or exceptional, drought, the worst level on the drought scale. As of this month, none of Georgia is experiencing a drought that extreme.
All of that is good; all of it is reassuring.
However, when you compare our situation to a year ago, things don't look anywhere near so bright.
This year, we're headed into the hot, dry summer months with water levels at Lake Lanier that are already 11 feet below where they were last April. In fact, springtime levels at Lake Lanier have never been close to this low. And even though water levels have risen gradually over the winter, the lake is today at the exact same level it was last October.
And last October, you may recall, the metro area was in little short of a panic, with the drought dominating the headlines, the evening news shows and social conversations.
Furthermore, even though the most severe drought symptoms have eased, most of north Georgia — and thus most of Lake Lanier's watershed — is still experiencing a D3, or extreme, drought. Trees and plants that were dormant through the winter have sprung back to life, absorbing immense amount of water from soil still parched from last summer's dry spell.
Streams flowing into Lake Lanier are suffering as a result. At a monitoring station on the Chestatee River near Dahlonega on Friday, the flow was less than 200 cubic feet per second, less than half the normal flow at this time of year.
On the Chattahoochee River near Cornelia, the flow was 440 cfs, again less than half its normal April flow.
"We're going to start the season out lower than Lake Lanier has ever been," says Pat Stevens, environmental planner for the Atlanta Regional Commission.
"We're concerned. You can't overtax a reservoir with such a small drainage area, which is what we did last year."
Earlier this month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed a temporary new plan for operating Buford Dam and Lake Lanier. Those changes, now up for public comment, would allow the agency to store more water in the lake and may allow it to recover more quickly, at least if the rains come.
Georgia officials, while supportive of the change, question whether it will be enough. Officials in Alabama and Florida are generally less pleased, complaining that it would mean less water flowing downstream.
Water in Lake Lanier "was never intended to be metro Atlanta's water supply," said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), "and any decision that makes it so comes at the expense of the citizens in Alabama, Florida and downstate Georgia."
U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd, a Florida Democrat, took a similar line, saying Florida was bearing the brunt of Georgia's mistakes.
"The state of Florida has worked hard over the past 36 years to be wise stewards of our water," he told Florida reporters, "and the state of Georgia must do the same by developing and strictly following a responsible plan for their continued growth and water needs."
There's no question that's true. It would be a great mistake if Georgia's drought-driven commitment to wise use of its water resources proved to be a temporary phenomenon.
However, it's also true that our downstream neighbors have found it all too convenient to blame metro Atlanta, as if we and the Corps of Engineers somehow created the drought.
As Stevens put it, "The corps only controls a very small part of the water; God controls the rest. I think sometimes they just want to inflict pain [on metro Atlanta], not understand the science of the situation."
• Jay Bookman is deputy editorial page editor. His column runs Monday and Thursday.
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