Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper’s report, Filling the Water Gap, released last month. The information for the report was compiled and analyzed by Laura Hartt, UCR’s Water Policy Director. Hartt wrote the report with the assistance of other UCR staff including Mary O. Harrison, Bonny Putney and Sally Bethea.
A region of 4.5 million people, Atlanta is facing a water crisis that has been decades in the making. The metro region relies most heavily on the Chattahoochee River, including its largest major impoundment, Lake Lanier, for water supply.
Given an extremely small watershed available to fill the lake (a serious problem during drought) combined with ongoing legal challenges that threaten the future use of Lanier for water supply, the economic prosperity of the region is at stake.
Add to these facts an increasing uncertainty over the seasonal reliability of rainfall, growing water demand, and the needs of downstream communities, and it becomes clear that in metro Atlanta, water conservation practices must be embraced as a way of life. We must all become more efficient in our homes and at work.
While most large metropolitan areas depend on relatively large watersheds to supply their needs, metro Atlanta is among the major exceptions. In fact, the Chattahoochee River watershed is among the smallest in the nation acting as the primary water supply source for a large metropolitan area.
Lake Lanier’s watershed covers a meager 1,000 square miles and provides drinking water for 3.5 million people today. For comparison, consider the City of Dallas, with the Trinity River watershed spanning 18,000 square miles and supplying 11 million people with drinking water.
By our calculations, Dallas has nearly six times as much land area as Atlanta available for capturing and storing water needed to supply its population.
Compounding our water crisis is the growing uncertainty surrounding our rainfall. In north Georgia we experienced an “exceptional” drought from 2006-2009, but we also had extreme droughts in the late 80sand the late 90s when there were millions fewer people in metro Atlanta.
In the fall of 2009, the region experienced a 500-year flood event. Climate scientists agree that in the future, we can expect these extreme weather events to be more intense and to occur more frequently without any greater predictability, and we can be assured that we will see another drought in four to six years, given past trends.
There is simply no choice but to use these limited water supplies wisely and efficiently. However, state leaders have been largely negligent in their failure to provide firm guidance and resources so that local governments can realize their conservation goals.
The 2010 Water Stewardship Act was a good first step, but much more can and must be done to lessen the impact of metro Atlanta on stressed local waterways and provide for future growth that is sustainable.
Three key conservation measures can reduce metro Atlanta’s water demand by as much as 160 million gallons per day (MGD), or four times the daily yield expected from the recently completed Hickory Log Reservoir in Cherokee County which cost $120 million to build.
These savings cannot be realized, however, unless and until state leaders are willing to put cost-effective conservation and efficiency measures first, and focus last on expensive, engineered water supply solutions that threaten to further limit funding available to taxpayers and local governments during these tough economic times.
Our key recommendations:
- Fix System Leaks – establish annual benchmarks and help fund leak detection and repair through a state matching grant program.
- Replace Outdated Plumbing Fixtures – pass legislation requiring retrofit on reconnect and the sale of high-efficiency appliances (e.g., clothes washers and dishwashers); offer low-income assistance for retrofits.
- Price Water Right – evaluate current residential tiered pricing structures and revise as needed; develop and implement tiered pricing for commercial users.
To read the entire Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper report, visit chattahoochee.org and download Filling the Water Gap as a PDF.
