[ale] Water levels

[Greg Freemyer]

On Dec 30, 2007 4:26 PM, James P. Kinney III
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-12-30 at 01:34 -0500, Greg Freemyer wrote:
> > Killing time on a late Saturday waiting for the computers to get done.
> >
> > Started looking at Laniers water level.
> >
> > http://water.sam.usace.army.mil/acfframe.htm
> >
> > Up a smidgen yesterday, so we haven't lost any in a week or two, but
> > haven't really gained either.
> >
> > But look at West Point lake and Lake George.  Both fed by the Chattahochee.
> >
> > All 3 lakes, including Lanier, have 30 - 40 thousand acres of surface
> > area at their current depth, so 1 foot change at one is the same
> > amount of water as a foot change at another.
> >
> > Lake George is up 3' in the last 3 weeks.
> >
> > West Point Lake is up a 1.5' in the last week or so.
> >
> > I haven't heard anything about this in the news.  Certainly should be.
> >  At a minimum that is a bunch of water we won't have to send from
> > Lanier down to Florida.
>
> Check the river routes. Not all rivers are coincident at some other
> point. So Lanier will still get hit pretty hard no matter (it feeds . If
> the newsies report the lakes are up the crisis will be perceived as
> over. It's far from over (and likely to only get worse - wait until the
> water bill starts to rise and water-hungry businesses like restaurants
> and drink companies get impacted) so no point in putting out a false
> sense of relief. We still need nearly 20 inches of rainfall to hit
> "average". The Chattahoochee river is one of the largest river systems
> in the south and thus it has the largest demand (populations flourish
> near waterways even with modern transport methods). The Flint River is
> tiny and so is the Coosa and they server a much smaller population
> (although Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile are huge loads on the Coosa,
> they are tiny compared to the drain from the Atlanta area).
> >

James,

I've actually been studying the websites and reading the articles on
this pretty carefully.

Effectively the drinking water shortage issue is over, or at least has
gotten no worse in the last 6 weeks.

We may still need rain for the plants etc.

The problem of 6 weeks ago is that all the lakes in the basin except
Lanier had been drained to their "conservation level".  Lanier was the
only resevior of significance with any usable water left in it and
with no rain anywhere, they were sucking a foot of water a week out of
it.

ie. If look at the initial website I posted, there are only 3 lakes of
significance in the entire Chattahoochee / Flint basin: Lanier / West
Point / George.  All 3 have about 30-40,000 acres of surface area, so
on a per vertical foot basis they are each equivalent.

By law / court order (including the new reduced flow rate from
November), the Chattahoochee / Flint river basin have to provide 3.1
Billion Gallons of water per day into the Florida Gulf.

Currently (with the outdoor water bans in place) Metro Atlanta pulls
about 600 Million gallons a day, but returns about 500 Million gallons
of treated water.  So that only nets out to 100 Million gallons of
water truly consumed.

Or about 3% of the water that is going into the Gulf to support those
Mussels/Sturgeon.  I suppose politically Metro Atlanta needs to
conserve, but in reality, there is just not much that we can do help /
hurt the situation.

On the plus side rain anywhere in the entire Chattahochee / Flint
River basin can be used to provide that 3.1 billion gallons of daily
water, so when either of the other 2 large lakes in the system go up,
that is water Lanier does not have to provide.

Looking at it another way:
Mid November (Remember the State Day of prayer was around then):
Lanier: -17 Ft  (from winter goal)
West Point: - 6Ft (from winter goal)
George: - 3 Ft (from winter goal)

Or a cumulative -26 Ft from winter goal

Last night at midnight (prior to todays big rain):
Lanier: -19 Ft  (from winter goal)
West Point: - 4Ft (from winter goal)
George: +.5 Ft (from winter goal)

Or a cumulative -22.5 Ft from winter goal.

So, a little over 10% of the lake water shortage has been recovered in
the last 6 weeks (really its all been since Dec. 1), and we  are just
now coming into the typically wet spring.

And I would not be surprised if Today's rain gets us another foot or
two between the 3 lakes.

Greg
-- 
Greg Freemyer
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http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer
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