U.S. Water News Online
ATLANTA -- Although the state is gripped by drought, officials say water restrictions are more a sign of precaution than of an outright shortage.
``If this dry weather continues, where will we be this time next year? You don't want to be saying, `We shouldn't have put all that water on the lawn,''' said Pat Stevens, chief of environmental planning for the Atlanta Regional Commission.
Metro Atlanta counties were among the first to undergo mandatory restrictions, banning outdoor residential water use from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and later including an odd-even system for watering based on street addresses.
Yet the Atlanta water system, which serves about 1.5 million people, is distri buting about 130 million gallons a day, well below its capacity of 240 million.
``In the metro Atlanta region we're really lucky because we have large federally owned and operated reservoirs -- Lake Lanier and Lake Allatoona,'' said Nolton Johnson, chief of the water resources branch of the state Environmental Protection Division of the Department of Natural Resources.
And while those lakes, managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, are below typical summertime levels, Johnson said, ``right now we're in a good position as far as water availability.''
But state and local officials said they must look ahead to next summer.
Two years of below-normal rainfall has reduced by half the volume of water flowing into the region's two major reservoirs while forecasts call for a hotter-than-normal summer.
Despite scattered thunderstorms in Georgia -- some of them quite strong -- rainfall totals so far this year remain about a foot or more below normal.
``We're getting ready to start on a long journey, and our gas tank is half full,''' said Roy Fowler, general manager of the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority.
Watering restrictions have reduced overall consumption, but they also have made people more mindful of water use.
``It reminds us all that, long-term, we need to do more about water conservation,'' said Stevens of the ARC.
But water restrictions don't just serve to stretch supply, they also dampen demand that can strain a water system.
When Paulding County homeowners recently turned on the taps after weeks of no rain, demand in the growing county jumped from the typical summertime usage of 7 million gallons a day to 13 million gallons a day.
``There was no supply problem. It was physically impossible for us to distribute any more water,'' said Paulding County Public Works Director Mike Jones.
Paulding buys its water from the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority.
In trying to meet the demand, the system's pumps are running around-the-clock, and such heavy use ``shortens the life of your pumps,'' Jones said.
Heavy demand on June 10 resulted in low pressure -- or no pressure -- in some parts of Gwinnett County as residents there apparently all watered their lawns at the same time.
Water systems aren't intended to handle peak demand for an extended period of time, said Neal Spivey, director of water production for Gwinnett County.
``It's like the arteries in your body -- the harder you pump, the more stress you're putting on the system,'' Spivey said.
Adding the odd-even prohibition to the water restrictions solved Gwinnett's pressure problems, Spivey said.
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