Apocalypse Now: The Drought (or Let them drink Coke)

[Sequoia]

Three million Atlanta-area residents get their water from 38,000-acre Lake Lanier. It's three months away from depletion—and that booming metropolis has no backup plan on file for that eventuality. UPS is testing out urinals that don't use water. Coca-Cola's international headquarters has turned off their decorative fountain. Georgia Tech's greening the grass in its football stadium with spray paint, and the city aquarium has shut off its waterfall.

But the problem hardly ends with one municipality's planning failures and these colorful consequences. Almost a third of the entire Southeast is smack dab in the middle of of the National Weather Service's worst drought category—"exceptional": most of Tennessee and Alabama; the northern half of Georgia; parts of the Carolinas, Kentucky, Virginia. As the AP reports, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue "asked a Florida federal judge to force the Army Corps of Engineers to curb the amount of water draining from Georgia reservoirs into Alabama."

And Alabama has to be thrilled with that.

Then Governor Perdue announced he'd sue the Army Corps of Engineers to keep them from sharing Lake Lanier water with three other states. Among the suggested solutions for Georgia: desalinating ocean water, building regional reservoirs—and, the the AP reports, "piping water in from rivers in neighboring states."

http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/apocalypse_now_drought?tx=3

[MadHound]

1. Oh great, Perdue wants to suck other's waters dry now

Sorry, but that will simply spread the drought. Here in the Midwest, we're already having our water sucked dry by the Southwest, which has drained off have of our nation's largest underground aquifer, which normally goes for crop irrigation. Now the Southeast wants to start sucking our surface water dry. No, sorry. If your land is becoming uninhabitable, move. But don't start sucking down water that doesn't belong to you.

[Buzz Clik]

2. And if you turn your gaze from the Southeast to the West, the horrors are present there as well.

Uncontrolled growth. Uncontrolled consumption. Poor planning.

I'm thinking it will get worse before it gets better. (It's the American way -- we don't try to fill the hole until we've fallen in it repeatedly.)

[riverdeep]

6. I love the boundless golf courses they have in Arizona.

That's not a waste at all, why do you ask?

But really, what's more American than waste? It shows how rich we are that we can just throw it away without thinking.

[alfredo]

3. Remember Arrakis

[Baby Snooks]

4. It's actually less than three months...

The original stories were about a month ago. Not going to be a very happy New Year unless a couple of major storms hit Georgia between now and the end of the year. Which is not likely. And even then probably would not solve the problem.

Water sharing between states sounded good. But is turning into a major disaster. Congress has consistently ignored the problem for many years. And it may be too late, really, to address it now.

[whistle]

5. They could construct sea water desalinization plants along the coast

...and pump water through pipelines over to Atlanta

<SNIP>
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[GreenPartyVoter]

7. This will will require a massive amount of sea water and power, but

I suppose compared to the costs of relocating entire cities that it's cheap.

[greenman3610]

8. forcast shows drought to persist and expand