Atlanta Water Wars enter a new Phase: The Latest Propaganda Barrage

[tnuctip]

The anti- Atlanta (water as a weapon of economic warfare)
propagandists are at it again:

" For every city with foolhardy water management -- Atlanta is at the
top of Fishman's list -- there is a Las Vegas saving money and energy
by squeezing the value out of every drop."

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2012/04/30/2819991/mcewen-author-thirsts-for-wiser.html#storylink=cpy

"Mr. Fishman tells some of the basic story of water issues in Atlanta,
Georgia, where ignorance, apathy and an obstinate legislature seem to
have pushed off any progress over the same span of time that Las Vegas
has found its stride. Atlanta has seemingly tried everything except
behavioral changes in the quest for better water management, to
include barely-perceptible legislative action toward court-mandated
deadlines, the gathering of fractious task forces and "expert" reports
devoid of substantive guidance, the outright dismissal of perfectly
legal threats from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (which operates
Lake Lanier, the city’s primary source of drinking water), and
bullying its neighbors both upstream and downstream.

In order to capture some of the abundant flows of the Tennessee River
just north of the GA-TN border, Georgia has staked a claim that
oversteps its existing state boundaries. In order to keep more of the
water near the top of the Chattahoochee watershed (and in Lake Lanier)
where Atlanta has sprawled, Georgia has rejected insistent
environmental and ecological claims from both Alabama and Florida, its
downstream riparians along the Chattahoochee-Apalachicola River
system.

At the very least, representatives from Atlanta and Georgia had the
wherewithal to solicit a luminary in the world of water-sharing and
long-term conservation planning, none other than Ms. Mulroy of Las
Vegas. It is still yet to be seen if Atlanta has taken her advice to
heart or to task, but the long-term sustainability of the Atlanta-
based economy in the southeastern U.S. hangs in that balance."

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/07/20/book-review-the-big-thirst-by-charles-fishman/

It would seem basic that the amount of the resource used must be
compared to what is available. How does the 5% of the river valley
watershed up stream of Atlanta outweigh the remaining 95% downstream
and how long would the water stored in Lake Lanier last Atlanta if it
were not released downstream for less than vital purposes even in
periods of drought?


Comparing the 210 mgd ( mllion gallons per day ) withdrawals for the
metro area to the capacity of lake Lanier 1,049,400 acre·ft or
roughly 326,000 million gallons gives 210 mgd for 1500 days or
roughly four and 1/3 years. Power generation, cooling for downsteam
nuclear plants, maintaining a seldom used navigable channel
downstream from Columbus to the Gulf and the occasional regulatory
( at least once based on an erroneous gauge reading) water releases,
DWARFS withdrawals for the Metro area and were the actual drivers of
reducing the lake water level during the drought. Moreover the
Chattahoochee River at Atlanta has a current average flow of 3410
cfs ( 2120 mgd) far exceeding 210 mgd without any release at all
from Lake Lanier. The average flow at the river mouth
( Appalachicola, FL) is 30,000 MGD, which would empty Lake Lanier in
days - yet Florida claimed that Atlanta's use of a fraction of the
water in Lake Lanier (which is fed by 5% of the involved watershed)
was responsible for insufficient reduction of the salinity ( rather
than an unprecedented drought over and beyond the entire watersheds)
necessary for bountiful Oyster harvests in the Gulf of Mexico at
Appalachicola.

Moreover excess flow could have been stored in additional reservoirs
upstream of Atlanta in prior years, had not their construction been
blocked by litigation from some of the same sources seeking to
minimize storage in Lake Lanier even during drought.

See page 45 of below:

http://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/1853/33301/1/StevensP-93.pdf

and:

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/GA/nwis/current?type=flow&group_key=county_...

For Chattahoochee flow in Fulton county at RTE US 280 ( immediately
north of Atlanta) or Fairburn (immediately South).

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ga/nwis/uv/?site_no=02336490&PARAmeter_cd=0...

Attributing intensification of drought
effects to the upstream location of Atlanta is illogical. If the
drought effect is magnified by such upstream city usage, then a
flooding event must be thus magnified in the opposite way. Yet a
one in 1:10000 year flood that submerged portions of Atlanta had no-
where near such effect downstream. Indeed a FLOOD effectupon
downstream interests proportional to what Atlanta’s usage is accused
of causing IN DROUGHT ( total drought effects over the remaining 95%
of the
watershed or a factor of 20) would have resulted in an immense
wall of water clear down to where the River enters the Gulf of Mexico
possibly raising world sea levels - by such "reasoning":

http://www.cbsatlanta.com/news/25105979/detail.html

It should be clear that a lake fed by 5% of the watershed of a river
valley cannot rationally be considered a significant factor for
maintaining levels on the remaining river fed by 95% of the watershed
downstream and at least four downstream Dam/reservoir-lakes of
comparable or greater size*. Downstream interests that claim so are
doing so for the same purpose ancient city states sought to cut off
water to neighboring cities’ perceived as more competitive- an act
of economic warfare. Even Sherman did not employ such a tactic
although he burned not only Atlanta but devastated a swath some sixty
miles wide from Atlanta to Savannah at the Sea and north thru South
Carolina.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_March_to_the_Sea

Indeed such denial of civilian water supplies is a war crime.

“The strategy of destroying [drinking water installations and
supplies, and irrigation works] of the civilian population has been
banned under Article 54 of Protocol I of the 1977 Geneva Conventions.

The relevant passage says:

It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless
objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such
as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs,
crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and
irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their
sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party,
whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to
cause them to move away, or for any other motive.”

(wikipedia)

http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-proto.htm

The chosen weapons here are propaganda and the courts, the end effect
sought is the same as if the armed forces of Florida and Alabama were
sufficient to the task.

*West Point Lake

Lake Walter F. George ( AKA Lake Eufaula)

Lake George W. Andrews

Lake Seminole