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Dry Times Down South

October 19, 2007

The South and water go together like peas and carrots, as a fictional Alabaman said in a famous movie starring Tom Hanks.

Water is in the air, when summer humidity presses down and glasses of ice-cold sweet tea extract relief from afternoon torpor.

Water is on the ground – countless creeks, rivers, lakes, marshes, swamps, and bottomlands define Dixie’s landscape.

Arizona it’s not. But don’t blame Southerners for thinking un-Southern thoughts about dry arroyos and desert hardpan when they look down at dwindling reservoirs and up at rainless skies.

Water supply typically has been thought of as a largely Western issue. Times are changing, however. Population growth and aging infrastructure are taking the freeboard out of water supplies, and metro areas east of the Mississippi River will not be immune from the effects of droughts, especially if climate change results in more extreme dry spells.

The Southeast is experiencing what the National Weather Service is calling an "exceptional" drought, the most severe category. In recent days, the papers have splashed stories – well, splashed might not be the right word –across their pages about falling water levels in Lake Lanier, the main reservoir that supplies 3 million people in greater Atlanta. Officials said there is about three months of water left in the reservoir.

Climatologists say a dry, warm winter is in the outlook for north Georgia.

Atlanta has largely banned outdoor watering, and landscapers are losing business. Years ago, stories about parched Californians painting their lawns green drew guffaws nationally. No one in Atlanta is laughing now.

Critics say that the Army Corps of Engineers is releasing too much water from the Chattahoochee River supply system to protect endangered mussels and to supply a coal-fired power plant on the Apalachicola River in Florida.

Mussels, power plant, and interstate water rivalries aside, there’s a larger issue. At some point along the growth curve, water demand will exceed what nature can deliver.

A report published late last year for the Corps of Engineers warned that Atlanta, along with Washington, DC, Charlotte, and South Florida are water supply “hot spots” facing stress resulting from growth, climate change, and greater competition for supplies.

The paper recommends more flexible water allocation policies, including arrangements that would allow urban areas to lease surplus agriculture water produced by irrigation efficiency investments.

Other recommendations: better regional water planning, developing groundwater recharge reservoirs, desalinating brackish groundwater for irrigation, and fixing up aging water supply infrastructure. EPA estimates that more than $276 billion needs to be invested between now and 2023 to repair leaky mains, fix filtration plants, and replace other worn-out infrastructure.

As a water consultant warned his fellow Atlantans recently, the water supply problem will not go away when the rains return. Planners need to look ahead at making the most efficient use