Drought a reminder to use resources wisely
The anxiety expressed by Lake Lanier’s closest neighbors (“Lake Lanier businesses anxious about low lake levels,” Oct. 3, ajc.com) is shared by everyone who relies on Lake Lanier. But it is important to understand that low lake levels have more to do with extreme drought in southwest Georgia than metro Atlanta’s water needs. Since late August, the Army Corps of Engineers has released more water from Lake Lanier than metro Atlanta requires. The corps is using storage in Lake Lanier and its other reservoirs to offset deficits in the Flint, Apalachicola and lower Chattahoochee rivers caused by the drought. The Court of Appeals has affirmed that water supply is an authorized purpose of Lake Lanier. The current drought conditions are a reminder of how important wise and efficient use of this precious resource by all parties in the river basin is to our state and region.
Boyd Austin, Chairman, Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District
Save some sympathy for your fellow citizens
When we watch on television the riots in Third World countries where people are objecting to their poverty, unemployment, lack of proper housing, ability to properly care for their families, etc., we are sympathetically appalled at the reaction of the authorities. Now, we watch in horror at similar demonstrations in our own country. Where is the sympathy, empathy and compassion?
Bettie Rechtman, Decatur
More than one kind of heat hurts harvest
Linda Edmonds writes, “there were major crop shortages because of heat and lack of rain” and “fewer crops to be picked” (“Blame Mother Nature, not immigration law,” Readers write, Opinion, Oct. 10). There was plenty of heat and not enough rain all right, but without workers to harvest the crops, perhaps the farmers stopped irrigating. Often, there’s more to something than meets the eye.
Dan Sasser, Atlanta
Apple startup wouldn’t stand a chance today
David Brooks is right (“Conditions not ripe for the next Steve Jobs,” Opinion, Oct. 10) — the environment in the U.S. is not conducive to startups like Apple. But Brooks misses the most important aspect of this sad condition. Having been involved in electronics for 40 years, I have witnessed the tsunami of regulations that have been unleashed by our government toward this industry. The barriers to producing and marketing a new product like an Apple computer are so costly that Jobs and Steve Wozniak would have been doomed from the beginning. Jobs and Wozniak had a crucial resource that does not exist now: freedom.
Len Cayce, Suwanee
