[ale] Water levels

[Greg Freemyer]

Yeap:

Lanier: +.21 feet yesterday
West Point: +.8 feet yesterday
George: +.97 feet yesterday

So a 1.98 foot cumulative addition yesterday

Puts us at -20.5 feet from Winter target.  A full 20% better than 6 weeks ago.

Or if in a broad since you say we are sending one lake foot of water
to Florida each week, then in the last 6 weeks, rainfall has provided
us those 6 weeks of water, plus a surplus 5 1/2 weeks of water.

So if we had 10 weeks left 6 weeks ago (70 days was claimed by some),
we have about 15 1/2 weeks left today.  Obviously those numbers assume
zero rainfall in the entire Chattahoochee / Flint basin.

Greg

On Dec 30, 2007 5:18 PM, Greg Freemyer <greg.freemyer at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
> Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer
> First 99 Days Litigation White Paper -
> http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf
>
> The Norcross Group
> The Intersection of Evidence & Technology
> http://www.norcrossgroup.com
>



-- 
Greg Freemyer
Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer
First 99 Days Litigation White Paper -
http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf

The Norcross Group
The Intersection of Evidence & Technology
http://www.norcrossgroup.com