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TechnoratiThe US drought is now so acute that, in some southern communities, the water supply is cut off for 21 hours a day. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a once-lush region where the American dream has been reduced to a single four-letter word: rain.
On Dancing Fern Mountain, in the hills above Chattanooga, Tennessee, two brothers worry about a beaver dam which is blocking access to the only fresh water supply for miles. "The dam is ruining the water and every time we tear it down, the beaver builds it again," says Larry Fulfer. "People don't think we should, but we're gonna have to get that critter and kill him."
With a slap of his tail, the beaver disappears. His dam is at the mouth of a vast underground cave system, where enough pure spring water emerges to supply the half-a-dozen families who live on Dancing Fern Mountain. "This drought has turned us into hillbillies," says Larry's brother, Brian, with evident disgust. "All we want is water in our taps."
Ten miles away, darkness is falling over the mountain village of Orme as Tony Reames, the volunteer mayor, drives up a dusty track for an important nightly ritual. He is turning on the water supply for a couple of hours.
These days, the plight of the village of Orme makes the national television news. And as the mayor drives up the hill for half a mile he is followed by a crocodile of gleaming 4x4s and rental cars, carrying among them a crew from the Weather Channel, Fox News, ABC News and The Independent. Under the glare of the television arc lamps, Mayor Reames solemnly opens the spigot.
It is a daily task that has turned him into a symbol of global warming. The sight of a small village trying to cope without water for 21 hours a day has touched something in the national psyche.
A few years ago, Orme, like the rest of the normally lush southeast, had plenty of water. But a powerful waterfall which supplied the village has been bone dry for more than two years. Water in the wells is now sulphurous and undrinkable, thanks to the drought. All around, the old mining village is surrounded by hills covered in a canopy of trees, their leaves changing colour in the autumn chill. It is strange to think of a mountain village running out of water, but the mayor believes the trees are dying a slow death because there's been a lack of water for more than two years in a row. "The leaves are later every year, I don't see how they can survive much longer without rain," he says.
He takes his role as guardian of the village's meagre water supply very seriously. At the appointed moment, and with a look of deep concentration, he turns a 4ft rusty lever, sending water spilling down the pipes to the village below. All at once householders run showers and washing machines and collect drinking water. And as Mayor Reames turns his lever, reporters press their microphones up against the valve to record the gurgling flow. Then they race down the valley to interview people doing the washing up.
What they find is a picture of shocking rural poverty. In one clapboard house, John Anderson is helping out his arthritic mother. He stands surrounded by jugs of water as camera crews wait in line to ask him over and over how it feels to have water in the tap for a couple of hours. "It's been pretty hard all summer," he says, "and it's not getting any easier."
Three days a week, a volunteer fire chief drives a mile down the road to the Alabama state line in a 1961 fire truck where he meets another truck and pumps about 20,000 gallons of water for Orme's tank. As news of the town's predicament worsens, more and more communities are offering water. On Tuesday the mayor of another Alabama town came by to offer as much water as they needed, without charge.
In a couple of weeks' time, relief will come to Orme and its 120 residents when a water pipe is finally connected to a neighbouring community. Mayor Reames applied for and secured a federal grant to pay for it. The half-inch pipeline should ensure the continued survival of the tiny former mining village, which came close to dying thanks to the worst drought in 100 years.
Many rural communities are suffering as the drought tightens its grip across a wide region, which includes much of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Florida. Here in scenic southern Tennessee, the drought is adding to the problems of extreme rural poverty.
At a highway rest stop for tourists - near a bridge named for Senator Albert Gore Sr, a Tennesseean and father of Nobel laureate Al Gore Jr - the toilets are closed for lack of water. In a nearby town, the mayor orders the grass regularly mown on the exposed banks of a reservoir that until recently was below water.
From the air the impact of the drought is most obvious. The mighty Tennessee and Chattahoochee rivers have been reduced to narrow channels of muddy brown water. Sandbanks and islands have appeared and old tree stumps now poke out of lakes and reservoirs as the water level falls.
The government's "drought monitor" says that 32 per cent of the region is in "exceptional drought", its most severe designation. The first five months of this year were the driest in 118 years of record-keeping by the Tennessee Valley authority. And adding to the problem is the region's booming population, combined with a political culture that preaches against government regulation and denies the very existence of global warming. The drought is now hurting Atlanta, a city boasting one of the worst environmental records in the US and whose political masters are among the least enlightened when it comes to climate change. Atlanta is teeming with Fortune 500 companies - including Coca Cola - and growing rapidly.
But the city's three million residents also endure some of the worst air quality in the country from poorly regulated smokestack industries. Thanks to profligate water consumption and drought, they may have no drinking water at all by January as the city's only source of drinking water, Lake Lanier, is running critically low. The reservoir's water must be shared by three neighbouring states. Soon the level will be lower than when it was built in the 1950s.
On Tuesday, with Bibles and crucifixes held aloft, hundreds of church ministers, lawmakers, unemployed landscapers and office workers, swayed and linked arms in a special prayer service for rain outside the Georgia Capitol. A choir sang "What a Mighty God We Serve" and "Amazing Grace".
Sonny Perdue, governor of Georgia and chief global warming sceptic, cut a newly repentant figure as he publicly prayed for a downpour. He even acknowledged that the drought was a man-made, as well as natural, problem. Georgians, he said, had not done "all we could do in conservation".
Then bowing his head, he said: "We have come together, very simply, for one reason and one reason only: To very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm."
But despite the looming catastrophe, and the publicity surrounding Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental campaigning, the issue of global warming gets little consideration in these parts. Georgia's state assembly recently organised a climate change summit in which three of the four experts invited were global-warming sceptics.
"It's very backward here," says Patty Durand, head of the Georgia branch of the Sierra Club, one of the largest environmental groups in the US. "It also has to do with money as almost all the politicians here are funded by big polluting industry. There is little awareness of the environmental impact of industry. In spite of the drought, Georgia now wants to build a new coal-powered plant that will suck away another 25 million extra gallons of water and pour ever more carbon into the atmosphere. They just don't get it."
One reason environmentalists give for the state's poor record is Southern Company, a huge electrical utility that wields huge influence all the way to the White House. More than any other company, Southern has been responsible for steering President George Bush away from action to halt global warming. It has done so by spreading largesse - $8m (£4m) on contributions to politicians in the past nine years, an amount far outweighing the political contributions of any other utility.
As a method of controlling US environmental policy, it has proved highly effective. On Tuesday, voters in Mississippi re-elected Republican Governor Haley Barbour, a backslapping former lobbyist of Southern Company. "The White House is not the only one being influenced by the smokestack crowd," says Frank O' Donnell, head of Clean Air Watch. He points out that Sonny Perdue has received large campaign contributions from Southern executives and even hired his chief of staff from its subsidiary, Georgia Power.
"The company has an unrivalled impact on America's lack of a national policy on global warming," says Mr O'Donnell, "and the coal-burning lobby doesn't seem to care much about the general public, so single-minded is it on building more pollution-creating plants at the expense of climate change."
After two years of blue skies, entire crops have died in the fields, and expensive lawns are turning brown thanks to sprinkler bans. The state's leaders are also bickering, with Mr Perdue threatening to go to court to reduce the amount of water sent south from Lake Lanier to Florida. The water flow - here as elsewhere in the US - is managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, which releases one billion gallons of water a day from the lake.
The Army has to provide enough to supply drinking water for Atlanta, to irrigate crops, cool several coal-fired electricity generating plants in the US and provide water for industry. It is also obliged by federal law to ensure enough reaches Florida to keep protected species alive, including two freshwater mussels and the Florida sturgeon, which are in danger of extinction.
After a bitter round of arguments between the three states and the Army this week, the amount of water flowing to Florida's Apalachicola river was cut by 16 per cent while the Fish and Wildlife Service assesses whether the mussels will survive.
Governor Perdue may have won round one at the expense of the freshwater mussel and the sturgeon - but in the absence of prolonged rain, the region's problems are far from over.
Next week, on Thanksgiving, there will be an even bigger media circus in the village of Orme as the freshly piped water is finally turned on. The village will then return to the obscurity to which it has long grown accustomed since its coalmines closed down in the late 1930s. "It's real quiet around here and that's how we like it," says Mayor Reames. "But yet so much has changed. As young boys we used to ride up to the waterfall on our ponies and take showers in the summertime. Something dramatic has happened to the climate and it's beyond our control.
"In a few weeks we will have water here. But what's going to happen to Atlanta where millions of people are running out of water? What are they going to do if the rains don't come?"
© 2007 The Independent
44 Comments so far
Show AllSTOP WATER CRISIS ! ! !
I would like to help people taking consciousness of actual water crisis to stop it !, maybe wearing an stimulating t-shirt? I've found:
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www.StopWaterCrisis.com
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with an incredible image of our "home" as you have never seen before...!
iammyself
Sorry, I was distracted by offline occurrences...
I don't recall whether anything was said about his other farming practices. The subject was the drought - and the farmer whose crops seemingly defied it. Whatever his overall approach to farming, these were the two things he credited with his drought-resistant successes.
My point was the short memories of the other farmers. While his results caught other farmers' attention at the time, the return to more normal conditions seemed to have allowed them to 'forget' the lesson.
As I said, some people do not even react effectively.
Hi all,
to Canuckchick...ha, ha, ha, funny boy....thanks for being one of the regulars relating to this article.
In regards to this article and its information, I am at a perplexity about the recent flooding in Texas...flooding happens in many states these days, Washington, and I just don't get why these waters can't be contained for usage...?
Do sisterns need to be built? Why cannot the obvious be used to our benefit? It's the old adage...make lemonade out of lemons....Geez, is it too simple to grasp?
In the overall scope, one needs to familiarize oneself with the concept of "controlling the weather" and the purposes of that. "Chemtrails" have been observed since about 1984-5, also when global warming temps. have been seen to advance....Hmmmm?...Increased hurricane destruction around the globe, seismic pin-pointing accuracy,...Hmm? Have you check out HAARP yet? Hmmmm? What are they not telling us?
Just some thoughts to get you wondering....
PAX
Can't blame the average Southerner. Check out the local politics who have allowed companies to use up most of the water. This lack of rain and water spells another crisis in America, so where is the Great Dumbo President now? What, in fact, has this joke of a man ever done for the country. he spells disaster on every thing he touches. And as for calling the southerners right wingers or holy rollers, etc. don't forget blockheads and rednecks and ignorant people are found in every state of the Union. The South doesn't have a monopoly on stupidity.
Yes, and we'll continue wasting until there is nothing left to waste. I always wondered what a cool, tall glass of OIL tastes like.
This is the price we pay for years and years of neglecting our environment. Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring is how old? Environmentalists and activists have been warning us for decades.
Of course, the republican party has taken malicious glee in claiming there is no Global Warming crisis...............
Mayhaps they ought try to placate Nemesis rather than their obviously irresponsible Gawd?
Greatbear, the core appeal for people of both Conservatism and Fundamentalism everywhere is its justification of personal irresponsibility in their adherents, and the transference of that onto non-believers.
Facts always will have a Liberal bias, and emotions just the opposite.
Stay where you are. Relocating to the north is not going to help. The droughts have arrived here too. I live on the Erie Canal and near the 'great' Lake Ontario. You would think it's a watery world. Instead this area and New York everywhere experienced some of the most severe drought conditions ever this past year. I know it because mature trees in the Adirondack Mts, the Finger Lakes region and in my own backyard are in trouble. They exhibit signs of damage caused by lack of water where they live, deep down in the soil. While we still have some water near the surface it may give some a sense of security. Don't be fooled: global warming is here and everywhere.
It isn't just the South populated with "yahoos". Here in PA I walk into my neocon VP boss buzz saw every day. CNN is radical far left, Hillary is weak, bomb Iran... then he complains how he and his wife can barely get by on $100,000/year and the operators in the shop make more with OT than he does on salary. Bush has absolutely nothing to do with so many of our customers having moved to China. It was that sleazy lefty Clinton. (Well, it was, but Bush and his big biz buddies love it!) On and on.
It isn't just the South that has water problems, either. Lake Superior is falling, and may eventually effect shipping on the St Lawrence. The Southwest aquifers are methodically being drained. California is a tinderbox. Here in PA, people were worried about the Susquehanna this summer. The Delaware Valley lucked out this year, but when things get dry and the salt line is getting close to the Philly water intake, people start wondering why NYC uses so much of "our" water from the reservoirs that feed the Delaware.
Regarding that Canadian peeing in the river, our local Boy Scout troop went on a canoeing "great adventure" up there a couple years ago and wound up carrying the canoes along dry stream beds most of the way. They weren't allowed to start an open camp fire. And if he thinks about the devastation from coal mining in West Virginia, what is happening in his tar sands region?
Perhaps there has been some slippage in Canada, however, they appear be outperforming the United States, at least with regard to health care. According to the most recent World Health Organization report, Canada spends 9.8% of its gross domestic product on health care (versus 15.4% of GDP in the United States) and are ranked overall quality-wise at 30th (versus 37th for the United States).
In addition, the life expectancy is three years longer for both men and women in Canada. The probability of dying between the ages of 15 and 60 years of age is over half again as high in the United States for males, nearly half again as high for females in the U. S. The probability of death before the age of 5 (per 1000 live births) in Canada -- 6 and in the United States -- 8. Infant mortality (per 1000 live births) in Canada -- 5 and in the United States -- 7. Annual expenditure per capita for health care (in 2004 international dollars) -- Canada: $3,173 and United States: $6,096, nearly double the total for Canada.
Would most United States' citizens rather pay nearly twice as much money to health care insurers, clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, etc., running the risk of being dropped from their insurance or being denied coverage OR pay half that amount for everyone to be covered, but instead paying the much lower amount to the government? Most United States citizens are so averse to the idea of paying any taxes, that they would much rather spend nearly twice that amount to private corporations, even for inferior results. This is why almost every other industrialized country in the world is slowly, but surely eating our lunch.
Has your member of Congress railed against "socialized" medicine? If so, they should refuse taxpayer-provided health care coverage and purchase coverage on their own (and if they have a pre-existing condition, then they can just take their chances, like everyone else). Ask them if they are still being covered and if so, ask for a commitment from them to discontinue their coverage. The tax dollars that will be saved will be yours.
People have great potential to do the right thing. In fact the great majority tends to make the right decisions when given the necessary information. In the US, the people are denied the necessary information and the responsibility to make the decisions.
It is the capitalists who shall make the decisions. With such horrendous waste and plunder resulting from extremely poor capitalist resource allocations, the only thing that keeps the whole system from collapsing is the cheap energy. This is why the imperial onslaught in the Middle East. Clinton, Gore, none of them will talk about it. They would not have media opportunities if they did.
Population policy now!! More and more people = more and more stupidity.
They are NOT stupid. At least the ones at the top. They are trying to get as much as they can as fast as they can.
Welcome to the Third World, Georgia--even though you didn't have to step very far down to get there.
willful ignorance, stupidity and greed - ?
No No - you have it wrong, it's Greed, Oppression, Propaganda.
canuckchuck writes, "....every day I stand near the border where the Columbia river crosses into the USA from Canada, and piss in the water."
Canuck, So many of your posts indicate your disgust with all things American. From my experience there is not a whole hell of a lot of difference in American culture vs Canadian. So what is it that you are constantly attacking Americans about that would not equally apply to Canadians? including your governments seeming complicity with the neo-fascist American government? Aren't multinationals setting up shop in your country? exploiting the resources? polluting? I know they are not all American. So what are you doing about that?
I, like many here, share your anger over the way things have been going in American society, but you tend to just sling mud indiscriminately.
There's a reference to rocks and glass houses, I'm sure you've heard about it?
Unity....fat chance
Fresh water shortage is going to be a huge problem around the world.
"1. He used soaker hoses for the limited watering he did - never tower sprinklers because much of the water evaporated, either in the air or from the hard surface of the dry ground on which it fell. 2. To conserve the moisture in the soil, whether from the scant rain or the soaker hoses, he mulched *liberally*."
Do you remember whether the farmer used organic methods? Sounds like something an organic farmer would do, or perhaps he was a permaculturalist. Or, maybe he was just smarter than the common bag of nails and believed in conservation and good husbandry.
RE: B Payne-Economist November 15th, 2007 12:58 pm
Please accept my apology for coming down hard on you about a post on another thread. Your satrical intent & humor are much more apparent on this one. I imagine you might have had some problems in your life from being misunderstood by people around you. Rabelais would be proud to call you friend, though, I believe.
Nayoibi - Re: the St. Johns River diversion
Unfortunately, many water problems are self-inflicted. My brother lives in Jacksonville and is in the midst of a running battle with his homeowners association over brown spots in his lawn because he refuses to water his lawn or apply pesticides during the drought. He keeps getting nasty letters from the association threatening him with fines. When he brings up the fact that there is a water shortage and it's not a good idea to waste it on grass or pollute it with pesticides, his comments fall on deaf ears. He obviously has misplaced priorities – got to keep those home values up.
My own town in MD is chronically short of water and is always seeking new sources – yet, I've never heard the officials ever talk about reducing demand or (god-forbid!) conservation. I even gave the mayor a couple of inexpensive ($5) water saving devices that I purchased and use in my own home and suggested the town might consider purchasing them in bulk for re-sale or free distribution to the homeowners, but I never heard anything further.
Some years ago we had drought-like conditions here (Chicago area), and the local tv news ran a story about farmers, who were complaining about how their crops were going to wither long before harvest-time.
Then they interviewed a farmer up around Glenview, IL, I believe, who said that he had no problem. (Indeed, his crops, as shown in the story, looked as though they were growing in a completely different area.)
Why the difference? 1. He used soaker hoses for the limited watering he did - never tower sprinklers because much of the water evaporated, either in the air or from the hard surface of the dry ground on which it fell. 2. To conserve the moisture in the soil, whether from the scant rain or the soaker hoses, he mulched *liberally*. Neighboring farmers who saw his crops (or heard stories about them) were amazed.
The news story was never followed up, as far as I know. There was a decent snowfall the coming winter and the rainfall in spring and summer was higher. Given that, how many farmers do you think followed this man's lead?
Some people act, while some only react - and some fail to do even the latter.
WTF stated "Seeing that they had not factored global warming, a crashing US$, and GWoT, the 2050 estimate may be late by 20 years.
... or 40
Bwahaaaahaaaah!
Praying for rain? Didn't work? Well, shucks! Does that mean that there's no God, or he/she doesn't like the South much anymore? Gotta be one or the other.
Tell Bush to help ya! Pray to the psychopath!
And, yes, thank you, I'm writing from the grey sky'ed, gloriously green and wet Pacific Northwest. Land of the Realists, Atheists, Progressives and Tree-Huggers that the idiot South has been making fun of for years when we even dared mention 'global climate change'.
About your lack of water, as you so famously all said when Bush stole the Election TWICE, and YOU thought he WON IT, "DEAL WITH IT!"
Those stupid dumbshits in the South have been playing "screw your neighbor for a dollar" for so long that they don't know what honest dealing looks like. Now god has taken away their water for dissing his creation and soiling the air with hellfire and brimstone (sulfer for all you atheists).
The South WAS a garden where crops sprang out of the ground and irrigation was a sometime thing. It will be years before that is going to be the case again. They're deep in drought now but without substantial and prolonged rains they will have a fire season. The wind will start to blow and it will occur to somebody who has been beaten down by his betters that there's a way to get back. Then things will start to burn.
Here's a hint to the red state voters. You don't have to believe in Climate Change because surely, without a doubt, Climate Change believes in YOU.
Good luck with that, and hide the matches.
water theft is happening all over this world.the canadian military is camped on top of the largest purest water reservoir in afganistan...the canadians main mission is to guard the water,some is being sold to france,but none is going to the citizens of afganistan.dubai has been stealing the water of all its neighbors in the middle east.the dubai water company has the eye of horus as its logo and it is draining the surrounding countries,dry.lake lanier was flushed down to the panhandle of florida to a nuclear plant.are they using all that water to enrich uranium ??and now there are plans to flush the st.johns river of n.e. florida down to middle florida,where they claim,they are running low.the people of n.e. florida,the wildlife and especially the endangered manatees are totally dependent on the st. johns. the maps of the underground aquifer of florida,show that one of the greatest concentrations was directly under the area they claim is running dry.this aquifer runs under disneyworld,universal and epcot....and that is where the water has really gone..horded and supplying a universal-owned megacity above and BELOW the ground.all war and rumours of war are misdirections,hiding the fact that it is the fresh,clean water that is the real gold ring on this merry-go-round we call earth.GIVE THE NEO-CONS THE OIL...the meek must find a way to keep them from stealing the waters.
whenscott and Michael P. Wright. I lived in the south (three different states both rural and urban areas) for more than three decades. I moved out because the vast majority of people that I knew / hired / trained / worked for / worked with / went to school with / etc. were as I described. Thankfully, there were the all-too-few exceptions. Maybe if I had more people like the two of you to converse with, I wouldn't have left.
It is with a sense of hopelessness that I see my earlier description fitting more and more US citizens outside of the south.
Please accept my apologies for any offense. I was writing from personal experience.
I don't know how to spell y'all because I never said it, let alone put it in writing and was endlessly ridiculed for talking like a nurthenur (which I sure is also misspelled, because I never said that word either).
Red states and Blue states are not compatible, never have been. Northern/Blue State independence now! Or at least as soon as possible.
I like to help all I can...every day I stand near the border where the Columbia river crossess into the USA from Canada, and piss in the river.
Cheers!
That guy who used 440,000 gallons of water? It's jerks like him that make me want to commit mayhem or worse, no matter what I think about the death penalty. You want to know how much water that actually IS?
I did a quick check. A rectangular pool that is 5 feet wide by 10 feet long and 3 feet deep holds 1,125 gallons of water. You'd need 391 pools that same size to hold 440,000 gallons of water!
The trucks transporting water to Georgia communities from Alabama hold only 20,000 gallons, and this ONE guy used almost 15,000 gallons a DAY during October.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi's GatorAid bottling plants here in Georgia use more water than any other industries in the state, much of it to rinse their vats and bottles, the rest for actually making the drinks.
TruOrange writes:
"Uneducated, backward, red-neck, southern baptist, die-hard christian buffoons. Bet ya'all think it's the Muslims who stole your water."
It doesn't take much creative intelligence to hurl insults at "rednecks." Is that any less bigoted than Muslim-bashing? TruOrange appears to be taking smug delight in their suffering. By the way, educated people in the South know that "y'all" is a contraction for "you all." TruOrange needs to learn to spell.
Well, can anyone say "water refugee"? What's going to happen when rain does not come and Coca-Cola drinks up all of Atlanta's water? What are the people going to do? I think it was the guy who wrote "Future Shock" who mentioned that we would be overpopulated and fighting over resources like water. When too many water refugees show up the individuals taking the refugees will run out of water too. They will have to stand at their state borders with weapons to keep refugees of all sorts out or they too will succumb to thirst as well. This sounds like a nightmarish Mad Max scenario, but this is what happens when people don't think practically about resources, overpopulation, pollution, and the like. This is what happens when we let narrow-minded, greedy corporations buy up our politicians and planners. This is what happens when people stand around waiting for Jesus, UFOs, or some other phantom to show up and take care of their silly problems. If you were Jesus would you fly your UFO down and scoop up these idiots who don't have the forethought to care for their own planet?
I think TruOrange is considering the fact that it's the "red states" that are suffering right now. I live in the south and didn't take offense. Trust me, I've met plenty of the people TruOrange described. They exist.
Dear TruOrange,
Please take your broad-brushed pejorative prejudice and put it away (I will refrain from suggesting where). A vast number of Southerners are capable of independent thought. Do we really need more mindless and unjustified vituperation towards anyone? Plenty of people in the North, West and East voted for the evil one....
I live in Georgia and we have well water that we don't waste. The only people who are suffering are those who rely on government-supplied water, towns and cities large enough to have such systems. A lot of homes have wells because rural areas in the state don't have access to city or county water.
What Sonny Perdue needs to do is hire an expert in water system conservation and agree to institute some severe restrictions. Georgia has been in drought conditions for months, and Perdue has done close to nothing. Look at this:
Executives at Atlanta-based Coke and Chicago-based Gatorade said they have received no requests from the state to cut back on water usage. However, the executives said they are voluntarily cutting back consumption beyond conservation programs already in place or in the works internally.
Georgia environmental officials could ask Gov. Sonny Perdue to limit the water used by commercial and industrial users as the state struggles through one of the worst droughts in years. State officials have said the current outdoor watering ban might not be enough to stretch depleting fresh water reserves in Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee River.
Two plants owned by Coke and Pepsi are among the city of Atlanta's largest water customers.
According to the Atlanta Regional Commission, metro Atlanta's 10-county planning agency, industry uses about 3 percent of the tap water supplied to the region. Commercial uses, such as warehouses or office buildings, account for 21 percent, so restrictions there could be more meaningful.
Cutbacks on Water Usage in Georgia
State officials are allowing corporations to set their own rules and blow their own horns during this crisis.
As of this Thursday morning after Sonny Perdue's Tuesday prayer meeting, we had rain! Overnight, the downtown area of Atlanta received nearly 0.3 inches! There will be rejoicing among the believers today.
But we need about 15 inches of rain to the north to bring the reservoirs and lakes back up to normal.
I thought you might find this snippet of local news that points out why you cannot leave the use of resources shared by everyone up to each individual.. Some people don't give a damn about the rest of the world. Cobb County is one of Atlanta's wealthiest and most conservative areas. Remember the stickers that were placed in school textbooks claiming that evolution was a theory, not a fact? Yep, that was this same Cobb County. One website gives an average daily figure of 43 gallons per person for normal water consumption. Now, unless this guy has 45 people living in his house, you gotta' believe he must be running water just for the hell of it.
Chris George Carlos to cut his water usage
November 14th, 2007
After all of the outrage about the house in Cobb County that used 440,000 gallons of water in October, the owner has said he plans to drastically cut his usage.
According to the AJC, his usage for the past week has been about 2,000 gallons a day, which would be around 60,000 gallons a month. That's still very high, but it's far better than the 440,000 from last month.
As many people suggested, it sounds like he had indeed been watering his lawn. These two snippets from the article seem to confirm that.
First, we have this: "He was very humble. It is my understanding he told his landscaper to stop all watering last week," said County Spokesman Robert Quigley, who called Carlos.
Last week? He shouldn't have been watering at that point. Also, the article says "Carlos was not doing anything illegal before Cobb limited outdoor watering on Sept. 20." That implies that he might have been doing things that were illegal after Sept. 20.
Atlanta's Water Shortage
As someone has said, this lack of planning and government direction will have similar devastating effects in disasters related to global warming.
The drought has just started for the south and southwest. Go North southern hillbillies.
About 25 years ago, I thought that the problem of potable water, then a severe problem in third world countries would become a problem here.
Not as much because of waste, although that was there. I was thinking about the amount of toxics we were putting in the water, air and ground.
Maybe Americans will start questioning the privatization of water here and elsewhere.
With MSM ignoring critical issues until their obviousness, in your face nature requires that they at least look like they're covering it, people are so misinformed and uninformed.
Security. It's the coastline getting flooded and hurricane'd by global warming, changing climate, corporate America running roughshod over our economy and Bush and CO. seeing how much power they can grab and how much damage they can do to this country and world in two terms.
Who says they're not successful?
It's okay though! Once the polar ice caps melt, the oceans will be so diluted you can drink them ... except for all of the garbage and PCBs that is.
And yet they still deny Global warming???
I can remember talking to senior scientists and policy hacks at Lawrence Livermore Lab in the late 1980s when I was told that US access to fresh water will be our biggest concern by 2050, and that wars will be fought for control. Seeing that they had not factored global warming, a crashing US$, and GWoT, the 2050 estimate may be late by 20 years.
willful ignorance, stupidity and greed
INVEST IN CORPORATE WATER
Now's the time, while the price is low. Catch those government failures while they're still in the throws of a panic.
Get those private equity firms together and correct this problem. Like the electric generation that was sold off and bought back at huge multiples, it's time to pillage and plunder the public assets of water.
Get it in line like medical care, where a third don't have access to water at all.
Hire Blackwater to provide Whitewater, using Chinook helicopters at only $20 a gallon - guaranteed never to "lose a gallon".
Go on eBay to find which politician to buy out for this great deal. Look under "Soaking the Public - How Low They Will Go to Sell Out the Water".
Meanwhile, we have some great evaporation-distiller kits to process all those water-based commercial drinks back to ordinary water, ON SALE for $500 - only takes 24 hours to get one glass of water.
Also on sale, satellite pictures of Big Ag using subsidized water next to photo of lobbyist that cut the deal - call for price - must prove not a terrorist.
Living like hillbillies? Take some responsibility here, you folks. You voted for Raygun, Bush Sr. and then shrub because BY GOD they were going to make you more secure. Just how secure do you feel without water?
Uneducated, backward, red-neck, southern baptist, die-hard christian buffoons. Bet ya'all think it's the Muslims who stole your water. Or maybe you think the illegal immigrants took it? Or do you think that it was shipped offshore to the brown people along with your job?
Sure they might die of thurst, but the good thing is they don't have to worry about freezing to death -- so says the White House. You just gotta keep looking on the bright side of this global warming thing.