Drought-Stricken South Facing Tough Choices

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Drought-Stricken South Facing Tough Choices
By BRENDA GOODMAN
Published: October 16, 2007

ATLANTA, Oct. 15 — For the first time in more than 100 years, much of the Southeast has reached the most severe category of drought, climatologists said Monday, creating an emergency so serious that some cities are just months away from running out of water.

In North Carolina, Gov. Michael F. Easley asked residents Monday to stop using water for any purpose “not essential to public health and safety.” He warned that he would soon have to declare a state of emergency if voluntary efforts fell short....Officials in the central North Carolina town of Siler City estimate that without rain, they are 80 days from draining the Lower Rocky River Reservoir, which supplies water for the town’s 8,200 people.

In the Atlanta metropolitan area, which has more than four million people, worst-case analyses show that the city’s main source of water, Lake Lanier, could be drained dry in 90 to 121 days. The hard numbers have shocked the Southeast into action, even as many people wonder why things seem to have gotten so bad so quickly....

***

For the better part of 18 months, cloudless blue skies and high temperatures have shriveled crops and bronzed lawns from North Carolina to Alabama, quietly creating what David E. Stooksbury, the state climatologist of Georgia, has dubbed “the Rodney Dangerfield of natural disasters,” a reference to that comedian’s repeated lament that he got “no respect.”...The situation has gotten so bad that by all of Mr. Stooksbury’s measures — the percentage of moisture in the soil, the flow rate of rivers, inches of rain — this drought has broken every record in Georgia’s history....

***

Within two weeks, Carol Couch, director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, is expected to send Gov. Sonny Perdue recommendations on tightening water restrictions, which may include mandatory cutbacks on commercial and industrial users. If that happens, experts at the National Drought Mitigation Center said, it would be the first time a major metropolitan area in the United States had been forced to take such drastic action to save its water supply.

“The situation is very dire,” Mr. Hayes said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/us/16drought.html

[Stargazer99]

1. If I remember correctly the RW has soul brothers in the South

those "there is no such thing as climate warning" group. It couldn't happen to a group that deserved it more.

[SIMPLYB1980]

4. The right wing also has to deal with Democrats like me.

I don't think that this is something that is "deserved." No more than New Orleans "deserved" what they got, because of all the gay people in New Orleans.



Mike Easley is a Democrat, the NC legislature is run by democrats. Our Reps unfortunately are Repubs, but we will rectify that in the next election cycle.

[rudy23]

9. You don't remember correctly, your memory is a black and white distortion

Thanks for pulling for the demise of our region (which is part of America)

It's very clear to me why there's been no meaningful action on Katrina from the Democrats.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Get your stop watches out,

when the news comes on compare the time spent on the drought threatening millions to the upcoming O.J. Simpson trial.

Thanks for the thread DeepModem Mom

[Locrian]

3. it still has not sunk in

People dont get it. We are too addicted to easy energy supply and that we MUST be satisfied as a consumer at any cost.

Most controversially, it has stopped offering tap water to customers, making them buy 69-cent bottles of water instead. “We’ve had people walk out,” Ms. Terry said. “They get mad when they can’t get a free glass of water.”

[murray hill farm]

5. I just returned from a road trip to Michigan.

I won't even go into the economic devastation I saw in Michigan. I drove back south through N. carolina and then down through north central Georgia. It was a shock. Lake Chatooge (not sure of the spelling of that one) which is a huge lake that is on the the NC and GA border north of Atlanta is a pathetic thing to see...all of the lake is down 30 feet or more from the original shore line with docks setting that far up from the water line as it is now. areas of that lake have now islands of sand and rock that have emerged with the water down so low and in some areas there is just a shallow river running through the middle of what used to be a lake. Going into Georgia toward Atlanta is even worse with lake lanier and lake sinclair looking the same. The situation is truly very, very dire.

[Chulanowa]

6. I'm going to miss the south

I'm from Alabama, originally. Not the hillbilly parts, but down on the coast. Very different culture there, on the gulf coast. And now I read the news, stuff like this...

The Gulf of Mexico is almost dead
The rivers and creeks and lakes are choked with cyanobacteria from farm runoff
It doesn't rain anymore unless it's a storm that causes billions in damage.
You can't spit into the surf without hitting an oil derrick

I'm afraid that my hometown will look like the Namib before I finally kick off.

[AlecBGreen]

7. this is a telling picture

Look at the size of those houses. I think our culture of "gimme gimme gimme" attitudes and self-entitlement are leading us off a cliff. People are so used to getting whatever they damn well want. We're the proverbial grasshoppers fiddling away the summer days and winter is coming up quick.

[AlecBGreen]

8. *ugh*

who owns a f'ing pool at their lake house?

"EWWWW Mommy, dont make me swim in the yucky lake! Buy me a pool!" :argh:

[Mojorabbit]

10. I live on a lake

and am planning on a pool when I can afford one. I don't like swimming with water mocassins and gators but that is just me.

[AlecBGreen]

12. lol

"you know the best way to scare off a cottonmouth? throw your little brother in first!"

Advice given to me from a friend :) Luckily my older brother never heard this bit of wisdom. And yes, you're right - no one wants to go swimming with gators and moccasins. Snarky comment withdrawn.

[Mojorabbit]

13. Great

story on the way to scare off a cottonmouth! :)

[Alcibiades]

11. In other news, the Northwest Passage

will be navigable year-round for the first time in recorded history.

Here in Durham, it's much the same as elsewhere in the South: the lawns are brown, the cars are dirty, and you can see most of the bottom of our local lakes and reservoirs. We entered into water restrictions last month sometime, at which point there was some carping about why city managers waited so long, when Raleigh and Chapel Hill had been on restrictions for about two months. I expect this may have something to do with folks using less water in Durham, with smaller lawns and fewer golf courses. The trees seem to be doing fine so far, but they have deep roots. I do wonder if this is having much effect on the local native flora and fauna, given that this is, by nature, such an extremely wet place (the Carolinas put the tropical in "sub-tropical").

Will the anti-science nutjobs accept this drought as further evidence of global warming? My sources say no, it's just another sign of the apocalypse.

[Digit]

14. I am in not that far away and have lost about 9 large azaleas & a dogwood

That was only a cursory observation as it is too painful to actually examine my yard more thoroughly.
Some of these azaleas were very large, and at least 20 years old.

I have been buying my own drinking water since it can get nasty when the levels get so low.

[Jade Fox]

15. They could start by not voting for idiots. n/t