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The Atlanta Business Chronicle, http://atlanta.bizjournal.com, had a story on Thursday, June 5 by Dave Williams. The headline: “Lanier Level Low Despite Winter Rains”.
 
“Lake Lanier is more than 13 feet lower than normal for this time of year at Buford Dam despite a ‘moderate to above average’ filling season last winter, an official with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday.”
 
“Jerry Barnes, appointed by the secretary of the Army to oversee changes to the federal agency’s operating plan for the Chattahoochee River basin, said the lake is also 10 feet below its early June level last year.”
 
The article had several other statements which I have paraphrased. The lake level is a concern particularly as the summer dry period begins. Last summer’s dry weather, not the higher release rates, dropped levels at Lanier so low that a region wide watering ban was imposed. But this years outlook is more hopeful than Lanier’s low level would indicate. The down stream lakes are full or nearly full. So Lanier won’t have to release as much.
 
“On Monday (June 2), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service signed off on a proposal the Corps issued in April to allow Lanier and the other reservoirs to store more water than they had been permitted to keep under the previous rules and release less downstream to Florida.”
 
“Barnes said northern Georgia still would benefit from a weak, slow-moving tropical ‘event’, a disturbance that would dump plenty of rain on the region without damaging winds.”
 
 
Will the reduced discharge help?
The following are actual spring release rates for the last three years. Complete records can be found at http://water.sam.usace.army.mil/gage/acfhist.htm. For perspective, a release rate of 100 cubic feet per second (cfs) is 740 gallons per second and is equivalent to 63.9 million gallons of water per day.
2006:     March, 1631 cfs;      April, 1841 cfs;      May, 2241 cfs;     June, 1586 cfs.
2007:     March, 1001 cfs;      April, 1040 cfs;      May, 1266 cfs;     June, 1656 cfs.
2008:     March, 613 cfs;       April, 585 cfs;         May, 799 cfs;      June, 852 cfs (through 8th).
 
               Interesting fact:
               If the release rates for March, April and May, 2007 had been the
               same as March, April and May, 2008, for those 92 days we would
               have stored in Lake Lanier 77.06 Trillion gallons of water. That is
               something close to 10 feet of additional depth. That is correct, three
               months of 2007 reduced rates could have added 10 feet or more to
               the current pool.
 
So yes, the reduced release will help, and help immediately. Actually the reduction appears to have begun, in earnest, mid-December, 2007. If the USACE can sustain the reduced release rates against pressure and lawsuits from Florida, Lanier could be full by early next year. As Mr. Barnes hopes, one or more heavy rain events could hasten that.
 
All of this said, yesterday’s (Tuesday, June 10) average daily release rate of 1447 cfs was the second highest since November 23, 2007. On April 25, 1792 cfs were released. The Daily average for the month of May is the highest since December, 2007. Let’s hope that the Corps can defend and sustain the reduced releases?
 
 
What about Florida?
Many people in Florida, politicians, seafood industry and others, claim that metro Atlanta is suffering because of a lack of planning. I could argue that Georgia’s planning was not so bad. It was the failure to execute any of the plans that was Georgia’s contribution to the water shortage. However, criticizing Georgia’s Planning would imply that Florida has a Plan, and that the USACE had a plan.
 
 
The Pre-2008 USACE Water Conservation Plan.
“Plan???? There ain’t no Plan.” Until recently USACE was managing Lanier from rules and policies created when the dam was built back in the 1950s or maybe updated in the 1970s. If conserving rainfall and storing the runoff for human consumption was on the list, it was not a high priority item.

There are several metro Atlanta water intakes below the dam along the Chattahoochee. There are several treatment plant discharges along the River. Both the intakes and the discharges are factors in determining the minimum about of flow that must be in the River and, therefore, the minimum amount of water that can be released. Higher summer water use and lower summer river flows normally push that minimum discharge rate higher.
 
 
The Florida Plan.
The water in North Georgia, you know, in Lake Lanier, 250 miles north: That water belongs to Florida. Yes, the water that comes from the upper 5.2% of the ACF Basin belongs to Apalachicola.
 
Florida argues that 60% of the ACF Basin water storage capacity is in Lake Lanier and therefore, they have a claim to it. I would argue, like I did on January 30, 2008 , that: Yes, 60% of the “basin storage capacity” is in Lanier. The key word here is capacity. Capacity to store is not the same as stored water. The top 14.58 feet of the lake is currently full of air. When/if rain and reduced discharges combine to replace that air with water, when Lanier is at or near Full Pool, then release water to Florida. As much water as they think they need. But keep the system at or near full pool. Manage the system for conservation of water. Manage the system to conserve the natural resource.
 
Florida’s best move right now would be to pressure USACE to capture and store as much water as possible in Lanier and other lakes. Pressure them to allow the lakes to reach or exceed Normal Full Pool. Pressure them to continue to keep the lakes in the ACF system full in the future.

What should Georgia and metro Atlanta do?
Continue to push for minimum discharges from Lanier and Allatoona.
Push for, maybe mandate, more conservation by the users.
Fund and build more reservoirs so that when rain does fall we have more than one place to store it.