Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Bear Creek Future Looking Bright

According to an article from a couple of days ago in the AJC, the status at Bear Creek Reservoir is looking up:

"Georgia's water crisis would be worse if the state Environmental Protection Division weren't relaxing its rules so more water can be pulled from streams and more water can be sold from one utility to another.

As a result, the Bear Creek Reservoir in Jackson County, which serves Athens as well as other cities, is actually filling back up in the middle of a historic drought and could be full, without rain, by the end of February."

Hopefully some of the other areas in Georgia that have suffered particular hardship during this drought will begin to greatly improve as well. I for one am glad that the long, dry and warm winter doesn't seem so bleak any longer.

I would still encourage water conservation year round as I'm sure many officials would, but thankfully, it seems that some people do have a plan and that we are learning from this situation.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Water levels up? No plan needed?

I heard on the news a couple of days ago that Bear Creek is steadily but slowly rising. It is just 8 feet below full pool now instead of 14. This is good news and is no doubt due in large part to the excellent conservation efforts of Athenians.

Not all cities are experiencing the same quality of conservation, however. Other Southeastern cities are feeling the stress of the drought and remembering what past times were like when water was scarce. Macon ran out of water 13 years ago when a tropical storm hit and floodwaters took out the water supply.

"State and federal authorities trucked in millions of gallons of water, set up 26 staging areas around the city and hauled in 2,200 portable bathrooms, said Johnny Wingers, director of Macon's emergency management agency.

'I get chill bumps thinking about it,' he said. 'It's 21 days I'll never forget. It burned an indelible impression in my brain.'"

One would think that with all of these past situations and the very imminent current drought situation that a serious well thought out future plan would be available, but according to the above quoted article, there is still not really a plan.

Maybe we should have one now, though I hope we never need it.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

A positive drought effect?

I have seen more and more signs and flyers around requesting water conservation year round. The drought situation in Georgia is a rather permanent one and water conservation year round could keep us from having a serious water problem like we've had this season.

Mostly I've thought about the drought in the sense of there not being enough water for certain industries to function. But there are so many things that it has affected that I have not even considered. Many horse owners have been forced to sell their horses because of the drought. No rain means no grass and no hay. The owners who haven't sold are paying much more for hay, $80 for a large round bale instead of $30.

Clearly, there are many negative effects of the drought as we've seen, especially on agriculture, but oddly enough, there have also been some positive ones. The drought has stressed Georgia pecan trees, but actually helped them to avoid disease and insect damage. Georgia's pecan crop this year is at the top in the US and the world. Georgia will produce three more times the amount of pecans this year than last year resulting in 120 million pounds.

Who would have thought that a drought could help something grow?