South eastern drought

[Van]

Anyone that doesnt live in the south east probably hasnt heard much if at all anything about the drought hitting from the Carolina's west to Alabama and north into Tennesse until this past week / weekend when CNN has been talking about it. Much of the talk has been about Atlanta wich has a deficit of 16+ inches and I believe a metro in Alabama has it worse at 24+ inches and other cities in neighboring states ranging from 14 inches and up. The problem though extends beyond these large metro's to the smaller cities and towns and villages wich are not on the larger metro water systems and are instead relying local wells and smaller aquafurs and resevoirs such as the one my town relies on.

Last month Athens / Clarke county set into effect a full outdoor water ban that ofcourse excluded specific businesses such as carwash and construction companies and two local poultry processing plants that each use well over a million gallons of water a day of fresh drinking quality water. The same day that this ban was put into effect ( warning on the first offense, $1,000 fine on the second and increasing after that ) it was released that our local resevoir had a total of 55 days supply left in it and that was three weeks ago.

Two problems are evident, one is with the local poultry processing plants that use so much water and the other is with carwash businesses that have been working in full swing here even though there hasnt been more than 3 days rain in the last month that amounted to more than a drop in the cup for us. There are two other problems one of wich I see portrayed very blatantly at work.

(1) There are those who dont care and are more concerned with a green lawn than wether or not their kids will have drinking water next week or the neighbors kids will. I know that some will say that all you have to do is go to the store and buy bottled water in gallon jugs but keep in mind that much of the south is still historicly poor at or below the national poverty level and a dollar bottle of water at the local gas station is equal in value to that expnsive merlot you bought for dinner last weekend.

(2) Lack of knowledge / education on enviromental issues, this is what I see at work right now as the distribution center I work out of for Wal~Mart is struggling to get people to adhere to a waste disposal program designed to seperate wood, plastic, cardboard, metal, glass and food product so that its not sent to the landfill. The problem here is most people have no idea as to what enviromental damage uncontrolled dumping of trash such as plastic will have and how important it is to recycle.

For my part our family uses the dishwasher more for washing full loads of dishes ( dishwashers use less water than you do when you wash dishes by hand ) we wash full loads of laundry only and we take short showers, our monthly water bill avrages about $16.50 while that of people I work with runs around $50 or more a month.

I'd be interested to hear from others who are in this affected region as to what they are doing to conserve water.

 

[Stargazer]

I think we are going to hear a lot more of this in the future due to global environmental changes that are taking place due to global warming/polution. I do not think we are even remotely close to doing what we should be to adress the climate issues.

I can see water rates going up to cover costs of bringing water into areas. Our future water supply might come from the ocean going through purifiers and getting piped in.

 

[blueman]

i live here in west virginia and have well water and its been so dry here that we worry everyday of the well runing dry

 

[banoonish]

I live in the Northeast corner of Alabama out in the country. All of the ponds that are for the cattle to drink from are almost dry. My son is a farmer and all of his crops are gone. My yard is brown and so are all the pastures in this county. I do not believe in global warming. There are always places that go through this type of thing. Last place was in the Texas area now they are getting lots of rain. It has been dry here before and it will be again. It is about to rain as I type this and rain again tomorrow. Let it rain!

 

[dishcomm]

Anyone that doesnt live in the south east probably hasnt heard much if at all anything about the drought hitting from the Carolina's west to Alabama and north into Tennesse until this past week / weekend when CNN has been talking about it. Much of the talk has been about Atlanta wich has a deficit of 16+ inches and I believe a metro in Alabama has it worse at 24+ inches and other cities in neighboring states ranging from 14 inches and up. The problem though extends beyond these large metro's to the smaller cities and towns and villages wich are not on the larger metro water systems and are instead relying local wells and smaller aquafurs and resevoirs such as the one my town relies on.

Last month Athens / Clarke county set into effect a full outdoor water ban that ofcourse excluded specific businesses such as carwash and construction companies and two local poultry processing plants that each use well over a million gallons of water a day of fresh drinking quality water. The same day that this ban was put into effect ( warning on the first offense, $1,000 fine on the second and increasing after that ) it was released that our local resevoir had a total of 55 days supply left in it and that was three weeks ago.

Two problems are evident, one is with the local poultry processing plants that use so much water and the other is with carwash businesses that have been working in full swing here even though there hasnt been more than 3 days rain in the last month that amounted to more than a drop in the cup for us. There are two other problems one of wich I see portrayed very blatantly at work.

(1) There are those who dont care and are more concerned with a green lawn than wether or not their kids will have drinking water next week or the neighbors kids will. I know that some will say that all you have to do is go to the store and buy bottled water in gallon jugs but keep in mind that much of the south is still historicly poor at or below the national poverty level and a dollar bottle of water at the local gas station is equal in value to that expnsive merlot you bought for dinner last weekend.

(2) Lack of knowledge / education on enviromental issues, this is what I see at work right now as the distribution center I work out of for Wal~Mart is struggling to get people to adhere to a waste disposal program designed to seperate wood, plastic, cardboard, metal, glass and food product so that its not sent to the landfill. The problem here is most people have no idea as to what enviromental damage uncontrolled dumping of trash such as plastic will have and how important it is to recycle.

For my part our family uses the dishwasher more for washing full loads of dishes ( dishwashers use less water than you do when you wash dishes by hand ) we wash full loads of laundry only and we take short showers, our monthly water bill avrages about $16.50 while that of people I work with runs around $50 or more a month.

I'd be interested to hear from others who are in this affected region as to what they are doing to conserve water.

e
here in central NC we are in bad shape. The Catawba chain of lakes which priovide the hydro power and the cource of drinking water for nearly 1/2 the state's population are down to historic lows. We have had jst three measurable rainfalls since mid july. To make matters worse temps have been running about 10 degrees above normal on avg since the begining in August. We had 79 days of 90 degrees or higher all 31 days of Aug and a remarkable 14 in Sept. Today it got up to 85 deg. That's 14 above normal. Cloud cover has been minimal adding to the evaporation problem.
Extreme measures are being taken now. And the Governor has stated there may be water rationing.

 

[ripnbigc]

We must have global cooling here in Kansas, we've had below average summer temperatures and above average rainfall. For the last several years, summers have been alot nicer than in the past. We used to have summers with 30-35 days in a row with 100+ temps, but not for several years. I hardly ran my sprinkler system this year.

 

[rcdallas]

Your right there is no rain here in North Georgia it rained good one day so far since I've been down this way the rest has been a minute sprinkle.... over in Chattanooga a stones throw away there is no water ban at all from what I saw this morning it's because their water supply is the tennessee river, don't sound right I don't know but being 3 miles away I would think they'd be under a water restriction as well.

 

[tigerfan33]

I think we are going to hear a lot more of this in the future due to global environmental changes that are taking place due to global warming/polution. I do not think we are even remotely close to doing what we should be to adress the climate issues.

I can see water rates going up to cover costs of bringing water into areas. Our future water supply might come from the ocean going through purifiers and getting piped in.

Before we start blaming evrything on global warming. Let's not forget that the earth is several billion years old. I really belive it runs in cycles. There has been several ice ages recorded before there were cars and indusrty. The earth did warm up after each one and we are currently on the back end of one. Now I am not saying not to take care of mother earth but please don't rush tp blame global warming.

 

[Van]

Chattanooga is listed as also being a severe drought location but them not having a water ban is a serious issue for everyone down stream over the last year or so. One of the news articles that have come out in the last year was about how the slacking flow of water coming down that river has had an impact on shrimp or shellfish farming, wich one I cant remember but I know that and drinking water shortage were both issues.

It's at a point now that you cant say that theres no such thing as global warming, the evidence as to what chemicals such as aersols and exhaust emissions just to name a few have on the ozone layer cant be denied nor can the impact that increased particulates have in building an insulating barrier in the atmosphere. Likewise it is known that we are on the trailing end of an old ice age and that coupled with mankinds reckless poisoning of our world are surely working hand in hand brining about climatic change much faster than it should be happening. The concern is what will the long term impact of a climate changing faster than it should through the normal process of going from ice age to savana like conditions, for the weaker species its comparable to taking a fish you get from the pet store and dumping it right into the fish tank without allowing it aclimation time, it dies due to shock from a drastic change to its body by way of its enviroment.

As the weaker species die off the not so weak species now have a problem finding food and then eventualy they die of and so on and so forth till it hits the top of the food chain though the one species that will survive is the roach long after we are dust.

 

[bnaivar]

Atlanta was told this morning that Lake Lanier (where most of Atlanta's water comes from) has 70-80 days of water left in it. Of course that's if the Army Corps of Engineers keeps the floodgates open to send water to the "endangered" mussells in Florida. (Which are going to die anyway when the lake runs out of water.)

 

[Van]

Lanier's big or rather it used to be, I saw the pictures of it this past weekend and I was shocked at how low it was and now Im wondering how low our local man made lake is that supplies Clarke and Oconnee counties.

 

[turbosat]

Just north of Birmingham here, we got maybe 1/2inch of rain last night, first in several weeks. It's so far between rains now I forget what they look like. Garden was mostly a wasted effort this year, grass all but dead, and I've been giving the wildlife a break by keeping the birdbaths and waterbowls full outside. Never saw rabbits and chipmonks coming thru in the daytime before, looking for a drink. I'm afraid it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
The hot commodity in the near future might be a gallon of water, rather than a gallon of gasoline. I can't wait for 'water traders' to appear on the stock exchange to further drive up the price.

 

[Paul Wozniak]

Move to Michigan; we got plenty of water

 

[Derwin0]

My father in Flovilla, GA says it's been pretty dry, but luckily the town's wells are running strong (they dug new ones during the last big drought in the 90's).

This is the bad thing about a light hurricane systems. It's those storms that feed most of the rain the southeast gets during the summer months. There have been bad droughts there before, and there will be again, irregardless of globing warming/cooling.

Watering them damn mussels doesn't help either. Nor did the the town's that closed their wells when Lake Lanier was built.

 

[duchen]

Florida Drought

Florida is also experiencing a "drought." The major problem is lack of rain in Central Florida.

Last year (or the year before), there was great concern that an approaching Hurricane might overwhelm the levies around Lake Okechobee ("The Lake"). So, they drained water from The Lake.

The Hurricane did not come. The subsequent drought in the Kissimmee River Basin (which feeds The Lake") has left The Lake several feet below normal and there are water restrictions.

My best guess is that the conditions in Central Florida (and North Florida) are part of the same pattern prevailing in the south.

While we have had above normal rain in South Florida (which is a subtropical climate), this has not helped the drought we are experiencing.


As to the environmental issues, there has definitely been global warming. Isolated areas where it has been cooler do not change the world-wide pattern. The debate today is over the cause of global warming, not over the overall rise in temparatures.

For me, it is irrelevant whether emissions or environmental cycles are the cause of these patterns. We should do our best to eliminate emissions simply so we breathe the air as G-D created it. Who needs to breathe polluted air or air with higher CO2 levels?

True, there have been droughts and periods of flooding throughout history everywhere. But, we cannot afford to have the ultimate scientific conclusion be that we contributed to adversely changing global weather patterns; on this issue, we simply cannot be wrong.

So, I go back to asimple thought: if it is emitted by factories and cars, I would like to breathe as little of it as possible.

The scary thing @ current conditions is that we are just entering the dry season in the south and in South Florida.

 

[Stargazer]

Florida is getting a bit of rain today, even a large tornado that was reported on the ground. This weather seems to be aweful warm for October. Hopefully the earth will be able to counteract the changes to correct itself. I read that even though we are melting the caps in Greenland we are going to cause Europe to become much colder. Maybe the ice will go from one area to another. It seems like when it causes one area to heat up another will get colder changing the pattern on earth. I read where it could cause us to go into another ice age faster and cause our weather to get a bit colder.

 

[Van]

Per the BBC theres a conference supposed to happen over the weekend or soon that will work on sorting out what all global warming is and isnt having an effect on so if anyone has access to BBC world radio wether on sirius or another service it might be worth listening to over the weekend.

I rememer seeing lake Oke on the news atleast 8 months ago and it was about how shallow the water level was, it looked alot like lanir.

 

[tigerfan33]

20/20 tomrrow night on ABC is having a segment on global warming also. Should prove to be very intresting.

 

[DWS44]

it actually rained in Charlotte last night and this morning.

I live south of Charlotte in Rock Hill, SC (York County). The OP mentioned how they had allowed car washes to stay open. Here, York County is now only allowing car wash facilities that have water recycling systems in place. All others were shut down.

I have tried to be a good citizen, and only watered my lawn on the days allowed by the restrictions...and eventually stopped that too after the grass was too far gone for the most part. Right now, we are only allowed to water one night per week, down from two days allowed most of the summer. Car washing at home has been restricted all summer. I have to admit to a weak moment after I got my new car last weekend... I stayed up and washed it in the driveway around midnight so I could start polishing it. My one neighbor that was still up that night is also a car nut, so he just got a kick out of it. Still, I probably used only about a third of what I normally would use washing a car.

 

[VinceT3]

Florida's Lake Okeechobee is around 5 feet below normal .. we've been in restrictions all year.. can only water the lawn 1 day a week..