Southeast Drought: What happens when the water runs out?

[Bennyboy]

The outlook for the Southeast is getting dire. Atlanta 100 days of water left. Athens 114 days left.

My question is...what happens when teh taps are dry? We are talking about millions of people, without water.

[Fovea]

1. No society

is more than two thirsty days from revolution

[no_hypocrisy]

2. They won't be able to truck in enough potable water.

My follow-up question to yours is even if it rained, how do you manage a city that might run out of water at any given time after this moment in time?

[Bennyboy]

4. What is the contingency plan? They must have one.....

And were there any measures taken in the past year to delay this inevitability? Were people still flushing the toilet every time? How long have they had mandatory measures? What were they?

What will be funny is trucking in Aquafina, to supply these people. Atlanta tap water replacing Atlanta tap water. FOR profit.

[no_hypocrisy]

12. In 1976 California was having a severe drought. Flushing toilets

became an issue. You'd read on billboards, "If it's yellow, it's mellow. If it's brown, flush it down."

[Catherine Vincent]

48. Oh wow.

So we should only flush when there are turds in the bowl? :)

[SharonAnn]

13. Contingency plans from the Republican state government? You jest!

[aikoaiko]

19. We, in Savannah, just heard they will start pumping out of the SAV river.

:(

[Bennyboy]

20. And what is the status of that river?

Is this a long term solution? Who's water is the SAV river?

[aikoaiko]

21. I can't really answer your questions.

But its worrisome.

[Bennyboy]

27. No Offense....BUT......

If you live in the area, shouldn't you know? Is this not Big Huge Humungeous news in the areas affected? HAs there not bee any thing about this.

Savannah is in the area affected by drought right? Or is this out of the area and there is plenty of water in that river?

[aikoaiko]

28. offense not taken --its just that the option of pumping the SAV river is new this week

Savannah is in better shape with water than ATL and north GA. But we are still a little low. I haven't heard of the river being low though In Savannah, the river is tidal so it might be the case of more salty water going upstream if less fresh water comes down stream (which I'm sure could be a problem for some wildlife).

[Bennyboy]

30. Actually that would be devastating.....

Wonder how long the water from there would last? High salinity is very harmful for the ecosystem. here is Sacramento we guard very tightly against that......

What is weird is that there is so little recent information avaiable. I ahve been trying to find out aobut his since I posted, and can really find very little about it.

[raccoon]

29. People will glow in the dark! nt

[aikoaiko]

39. But the fishin is great.

[lpbk2713]

3. Emergency no-bid contracts to Halliburton!!

Uncle Dick has it all worked out.

[daninthemoon]

5. What's to worry? FEMA will take care of everything. No? Long term,

water is the one crucial commodity that no human settlement can do without. All over the world there are places where civilizations once thrived, and then had to abandon. Is Atlanta next? It's just possible that what was touted as one of America's best modern planned cities was actually the opposite. They may have forgotten the most important thing.

[ben_meyers]

6. Back in the 30's people abandoned their homes and farms

and moved west. That won't be an option now, the west is full.

[kestrel91316]

7. .....and having its own drought.......

[jwirr]

8. When this happens those who can will leave and those who cannot

leave will face a dire emergency. If this happens during *ss's reign they will be in serious trouble.

[daninthemoon]

11. Yep, and I wonder what will happen to home prices there, and

how it will effect prices elsewhere. I wonder if there's a corollary to the "dust bowl" migration and depression. Factor in the "rich getting richer" times we are living in...Won't be a good thing, that's for sure.:hide:

[patrice]

9. Have you heard about Lake Superior?

Way, way down as are most of the Great Lakes to one degree or another.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9899341

[BadgerLaw2010]

17. Great Lakes need more rain and a real winter for Canadian snowpack.

[Delphinus]

54. I, for one,

am *praying* that we get a real winter this year.

[Uncle Joe]

10. Excellent question, BennyBoy!

:thumbsup:

[DemoTex]

14. Georgia is looking at tapping into South Carolina's water reserves ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2057202&mesg_id=2057202

[IDemo]

15. Katrinazation will become public policy

Ignore, deny, send in bad actors from FEMA, claim success.

Continue to ignore and deny.

[Fresh_Start]

16. Go to church and pray, I guess

Because believing that humans can influence anything which is under Gods control is blasphemous

[donsu]

31. we caused climate change - we have to fix it or die - gods have nothing to do with it

nt

[SammyWinstonJack]

41. ...

:sarcasm: :shrug:

[Done]

42. Even in the south

urban areas (like Atlanta) tend to be less evangelical and they tend to vote Democratic.

[misanthrope]

18. For years, various experts have been predicting...

...that humanity was facing a future with wars waged over fresh water as a result of human habitation, population explosion and ecological destruction. So many American conservatives chose to ignore this, no doubt gathering solace that those type things only happened in Third World regions.

Ironic that the area of the United States first hit hardest is also among the most historically conservative regions.

This is a disaster unfolding that will eclipse the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression due to the greater population concentration in modern Atlanta and the entire Southeast. It will also likely cement perception of the George W. Bush era as one of unmitigated failure even though the drought is no more a product of Dubya than the Dust Bowl was a result of Hoover.

The scary part is that the worst of it is yet to come. If this drought continues in this fashion, widespread fires are bound to result. Once the cycle of fires has finished, erosion escalates. All the additional ash, smoke and dust in the atmosphere will play havoc on the ecosystem.

[Nederland]

22. We'll start building desalination plants

Problem solved.

Water isn't scarce folks. Fresh water is scarce. Israel has been living with that reality for decades and doing rather well thank you.

[misanthrope]

23. How energy intensive is desalination?**nm

**

[lovuian]

24. when you have millions thirsty you kinda forget that part

Desalination plants take three years to build unfortunately I kinda think this government wants them to be thirsty
its a bit late but somebody should realize global warming is going to make water scarcer

[alfredo]

50. More profit from bottled water. That's what is going on in India.

multinationals buy up access to water, including small ponds, then force locals to use bottled water. Livestock dies, crops won't grow.

[Nederland]

25. Less intensive than growing food (nt)

[MadHound]

34. Depends on how your grow your food

Organic no till isn't very energy intensive at all.

[lovuian]

52. Houston has a Desalination Plant owned by Dow for their

factories if I was the government (anybody out there in government read this I hurry up and make a contract with them not that it will totally solve the problem but it would help)
and I'd make Desalination plants on east coast West coast and Gulf

[Sequoia]

38. What actually does Isreal do about it?

How do families and business ration themselves, what do they do?

[Solon]

40. So they can build, and bring online desalination plants in 100 days...

and have them be able to produce enough water for the entire city of Atlanta? Surely you jest!

[NickB79]

45. I'll give you three guesses as to what those desal. plants will be powered by

It ain't gonna be solar, wind or nuclear. What energy source is the Southern US famous for excavating, sometimes by tearing apart whole mountain ranges?

What's ironic is that burning coal causes global warming. Global warming causes droughts like these. The solution? Burn more coal to run A/C units and desalination plants. The downward spiral continues.

[Bennyboy]

26. Australia...What happens now that the water HAS run out?

Not just the US. Australia is facing it's worst drought in history. Farmers have no water. extreme situation.....

[NickB79]

46. They're shooting their cattle and abandoning their farms in Oz

Some ballsy farmers took a gamble and planted large fields of crops a couple of months ago after the first decent rains for years in some areas. Now that they're entering summer down there, the rains have stopped completely, and those fields they invested the last of their life savings into are dead or dying.

Unbelievable pain going on in Australia, and the worldwide media largely ignores them.

[Sequoia]

32. If those stupid Army Corps would stop releasing water to Florida !!!

Responding to an ultimatum from Gov. Sonny Perdue, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Wednesday it is looking into releasing less water from Lake Lanier, just days after the Corps began sending billions more gallons downstream.

But Perdue said time's up: The state will ask the courts this week to force the Corps to leave more water in Lanier, the main drinking water supply for drought-starved metro Atlanta. "Georgia is out of time," Perdue said in a news release.

Meanwhile, the director of Georgia's Environmental Protection Division said "it's very likely" that even tighter watering restrictions will be needed in North Georgia, regardless of whether the Corps cuts its Lanier releases. The large releases are being made primarily to protect endangered mussels and support a power plant downstream in Florida. One of the main reasons for the Corps' large releases from Lanier is a small coal-fired plant downstream in Florida operated by Gulf Power, a sister company to Georgia Power. The utility said it is in discussion with the Corps about reducing its water needs.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/10/17/drought_1018.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

Oh swell, relase water so Florida can power their smog and death producing plant.

[A wise Man]

33. After the water runs out...

...then BUSH will piss on us for sure, and tell his repug friends "ITS RAINING"!!!

[Bennyboy]

35. Interesting story..... So they wait till almost no water before....

telling people to conserve? http://www.wsbtv.com/news/14320447/detail.html

I really hopw that the elected officials are not this stupid. 120 day of water left and now they are telling them to conserve water? WTF? Why were mandatory reguations not put in place last summer? Or even after a low rainfall winter? Why are they just now saying conserve and not even really mandating some of the most drastic, and effective, methods?

[napi21]

37. There have been water restriction in Ga. for at least 7 years!

we moved to 2000 in 2000, and there were restrictions. They never went away...even the one year we had an overabundance of rainfall and the Lakes were all more than fullpool.A BIG part of the problem has beern the huigh growth in Atlanta and North Ga. Everywhere you go there's another new sub division, and strip centers glaore!

[BronxBoy]

55. Yep....

That's what they did.

And as an add on to your question: How does a major American city wake up one day and say "Oh shit, we only have 3 months of water left!"?

It seems to me that one of the central missions of any water management program would be to establish what a regions water needs are, monitor that supply and it's ability to meet expected demand and to take progressively more aggressive action to protect that supply if it begins to dwindle.

I fricking live down here and wasn't aware that we were about to run out of water. I knew we were in a severe drought and that restrictions were put into place but that doesn't scream the same thing as "HEY PEOPLE, WE ARE ABOUT TO RUN OUT OF WATER" I just read an article in the local paper the other day that the landscapers were complaining at a public meeting that they were the only enterprises who were really cracked down on. I say that not out of any special compassion for them but becuase at least in the area where this story was written commercial car washes were still open.

No someone was asleep at the switch and now it's panic time.

And a lot of us who live down here have noted that the causes for this are numerous.

[MadHound]

36. We might as well face the fact that we're essentially on our own

And start making our contingency plans with that assumption in mind. Water, food, energy are all going to become increasingly rare and increasingly expensive. If you have the money to do so, getting a few acres out in the country where you can generate your own power(solar, wind), grow your own food(organic, heirloom and save seeds), and either dig a well, a cistern or both, I would suggest that you do just that. Any major metropolitan area only has in reality about a three day supply of these necessities on hand at any one time. After that, you're screwed. Besides, as they found out during the Depression, it's easier to be poor out in the country than it is in an urban area.

[BronxBoy]

56. You got that right

going home to tend to the crops now.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

43. They stop watering golf courses.

Really, golf courses across the country use enough water to supply drinking needs several times over.

It's not like people are going to go thirsty, it's just that people will need to use water more responsibly.

[RebelOne]

44. There is some hope. It's raining in the Atlanta area today.

[Blackhatjack]

47. Raleigh has 97 Days Left, Durham has 68 Days Left, .... We are in BIG TROUBLE...

Wednesday Oct 17 edition of News & Observer here in Raleigh carried these numbers on the front page.

We need about 2 feet of rain to keep our reservoirs from drying up. A hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Raleigh says we have LESS than a 20% chance that will happen.

The elephant in the room is --when you no longer can wait for it to rain, how do you go about restricting INSIDE use of water up to 50% ???

"We have really not worked out in much detail what you would do if you really had to cut demand by 50 percent.... Nobody's willing to talk about it." --Dave Moreau, Director of the N.C. Water Resources Institute.

[alfredo]

49. invade Chad

[XOKCowboy]

51. Soon we'll realize that water is more precious than oil

The water crisis has been looming over most of California and the Colorado River drainage for years. Thanks go Global Climate Change it's hit the formerly rainy southeast now. It will be something we'll all be facing very soon.

Oil just powers our cars. You can't drink oil. Water is the liquid that keeps the earth alive.

[Javaman]

53. people die. no water, no body workie. nt