Suburban Guerrilla

Feed on: Posts; Comments

Dried Up

Nov 2nd, 2007 at 10:19 am by Susie

The town has received a $377,590 emergency grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that Reames hopes will be Orme’s salvation. A utility crew is laying a 2 1/2-mile pipe to connect Orme to the Bridgeport, Ala., water supply. The work could be finished by Thanksgiving.

“It’s not a short-term solution,” Reames says. “It is THE solution.”

He says the crisis in Orme could serve as a warning to other communities to conserve water before it’s too late.

“I feel for the folks in Atlanta,” he says, his gravelly voice barely rising above the sound of rushing water from the town’s tank. “We can survive. We’re 145 people. You’ve got 4.5 million people down there. What are they going to do? It’s a scary thought.”

Posted in Uncategorized

2 Responses to “Dried Up”

on 02 Nov 2007 at 10:33 am1brendan

According to the NYT, Georgia has been having water issues for a long time.

These last-minute measures belie a history of inaction in Georgia and across the South when it comes to managing and conserving water, even in the face of rapid growth. Between 1990 and 2000, water use in Georgia increased 30 percent. But the state has not yet come up with an estimate of how much water is available during periods of normal rainfall, much less a plan to handle the worst-case event — dry faucets.

“We have made it clear to the planners and executive management of this state for years that we may very well be on the verge of a systemwide emergency,” said Mark Crisp, a water expert in the Atlanta office of the engineering firm C. H. Guernsey.

But a sense of urgency has been slow to take hold. Last year, a bill died in the Georgia Legislature that would have required that low-flow water devices be installed in older houses before they are resold. Most golf courses are classified as “agricultural.” Water permits are still approved first come first served.

Read the whole thing: no plan, blamecasting, and an attitude of “development first, ask questions later.”
Well, I guess it’s later now.
on 04 Nov 2007 at 6:03 am2fdeaton

I lived in Atlanta for quite some time-mid 70s to very late 80’s and I well remember Lake Lanier getting very low, probably around 1980 and I must agree that the leaders in Georgia through many administrations (city and state) have had their collective heads in the sand for far too long and they have encouraged unbridled growth without thought to critical infrastructure.

Roads have always been a problem as the metro population increased, but citizens saw the gridlock and actively advocated for road expansion. Few gave a second thought to the availability of water or to the crumbling sewer system and now the bill is due.