Georgia DUers, how bad is the water shortage in Atlanta

[greenman3610]

I read and hear stories about people using bathwater to flush
their toilets, etc,
any relief from the spring rains? Or is
rationing still in the offing?

[conscious evolution]

1. No real problems that I see

There are people using gray water but they are doing so voluntarily to cut back water usage.
We have had rain around here but I am not sure if we are above or below the normal average for this time of year.
What I find interesting is that most of Georgias lakes are at ot very close to full pool.Except for Lake Lanier,which supplies Atlantas water.It is also one of the few lakes whose water level is decided by a Federal Agency.
Hmmm..A bushco controlled agency controlling the water supply of a very blue town.
Kinda makes me wonder if I need to break out my tinfoil hat.

[RebelOne]

2. No real problem where I live in Woodstock, just northwest of Atlanta.

I live in a mobile home park and the only restrictions are that we are not allowed to wash our cars or pressure-clean our homes.

[onehandle]

3. Restrictions are stupidly cut at the moment. Our useless Governor will not follow experts' advice.

We will be in real trouble again by Summer. Georgia will be a dustbowl soon.

[bunkerbuster1]

4. It is very bad, but metroLanta is in deep, deep denial

There are general outdoor watering bans (with some allowances for hand-watering at specific times); beyond that, no major legislative corrections have taken place to curb water usage or reclaim water.

People seem to think that we're not in such bad shape because the water didn't quite hit its historic low some months ago. However, a quick check here:

http://tinymicros.com:8080/cgi-bin/nph-lanier.pl

shows that today, the lake level is NINE FEET below where it was a year ago.

Personally, we've had a rain barrel to capture some roof run-off, and I keep a 5-gallon plastic can in the shower to capture water while I'm waiting for it to warm up in the morning, so that the worst-off shrubs and trees won't keel over this summer.

I have to assume that water-recovery systems haven't been mandated for new metro-Atlanta construction because of a complete lack of backbone on the part of government; that's not an answer, but it would help, at least.

[Phentex]

5. I see fewer cheaters now because of the bans...

the odd-even thing just allowed people to act like they didn't know what day it was! And only allowing hand watering has helped I think. (I know it's still odd/even but at least no sprinklers are allowed.)

I've been flushing the toilet with gray water since before Thanskgiving and it has made a huge difference. Also, we are now catching the water from the furnace/ac and it's a lot of water!

I agree that people are still in denial. A neighbor just put down new sod. I know he got a permit but WHY WHY WHY would he do this right now?

[bunkerbuster1]

7. Agree that most are going along with the restrictions

When I said "deep denial" I didn't mean to imply that most are just ignoring the restrictions, and washing their cars, hosing down their sidewalks, and watering their lawns as they did in years past. You're right, the vast majority of people, from what I can see, understand that they can't do those things.

But I don't think that people seem to understand that our reservoir levels aren't recovering. We're actually in much worse shape than we were a year ago. It's not like we should panic, but we really can't afford to have Sonny and the idiots in charge of the state house continue to dilly-dally on this.

Yes, there has been some legislation, like this:

http://www.gefa.org/Index.aspx?page=416

...but it focuses on new reservoir construction, and doesn't, from what I can tell, actually provide sufficient funding to accomplish much. There are no mandates for water recovery systems.

That's what I meant by deep denial. Where's the outrage?

[SidDithers]

6. I thought Gov Sonny prayed those problems away...

Hope you get rain soon.

Sid

[bunkerbuster1]

8. Some rain won't fix the problem.

Increasingly, we're hearing that something like a few major tropical storms need to come inland in order to get us within shouting distance of where the reservoir levels ought to be.

Short answer is, we're screwed for the foreseeable future.

[Dawgs]

9. I live within 10 miles of the lake that is scaring the shit out of everyone.

It's not bad.

My wife and I are conserving lots of water, but it's not bad.