Water (Atlanta: how much, house, landscaping)

[crystalblue]

Whats up with this?

where will you get your water if Lanier dries up?

SINKING TO A 50-YEAR LOW? Drought a drain on Lanier | ajc.com (broken link)

[crystalblue]

Ban on most outdoor watering may not be enough, state says | ajc.com (broken link)

more on the subject. what happens if the drought last another yr or two?

[Britishintown]

If atmospheric condensers were brought into play in homes with yards it would cut the water use hugely, and with the humidity in Atlanta efficiency should be high, new buildings should consider them for irrigation and cleaning uses.

[atlantagreg30127]

[quote=crystalblue;1610754what happens if the drought last another yr or two?[/QUOTE]


They're going to start recycling your toilet water into drinking water.

[crystalblue]

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

[pinetreelover]

We all need to think more about indigenous plantings. Pinetrees, daisys, rhododrendon and shade plants are native to our region and inherently require less water. Burmuda grass and fancy annuals are water suckers. I predict we begin to see much more sensible landscaping over time.

[crystalblue]

yes, but what will happen over the next two yrs?

id imagine it would take a while to do anything, even recycling the sewer water.

[atlantagreg30127]

Originally Posted by crystalblue

yes, but what will happen over the next two yrs?

id imagine it would take a while to do anything, even recycling the sewer water.

There are simple things that if EVERYONE did them, would add up to quite a bit of water savings. The problem is, you never can get more than a small percentage of people to contribute their share.

Tips:

1) Take an empty bottle from bottled water, or a shampoo bottle, etc., and place it in the back of your toilet tank(s). Every time you flush, you'll save whatever that bottle holds (16oz, etc) in water. Most likely it will not alter the flush-effectiveness, either. If you have an older toilet, invest in the new 1.5 gal toilets. Remodeling or adding a bathroom? Have males in the house? Consider installing a urinal. They now come in colors, and use 1/2 or less of the water a toilet uses to flush. Since 70% of bathroom visits are to pee, you'll save a lot of water using urinals over toilets.

2) Have dogs? When you change the water in their bowls for fresh water, save the old water in a bucket. Use that to water house plants. Put buckets or barrels outside to catch gutter water.

3) Pay extra attention to how much water you use when washing clothes. I had read that something like 75 % of wash loads are set to one level of water HIGHER than they need to be. If you're just putting a few clothes in, use the small/med load instead of large. Pay attention to your washer settings.

4) Buy water absorbtion crystals for house and garden plants. They look like rock salt but swell up like jello globs and soak up water. You sprinkle them in the dirt around the garden or house plants when you plant them (around the roots) and they will absorb water so you have to water stuff less. Plus in times like this they'll help keep things from dying when you can't water them.

5) Simply fix leaks. If you have any pipes that are leaking, fix them. If you have faucets that drip - change the washer and fix them. It adds up.

6) Take super long showers? Cut back. Install a shut-off switch at the shower head so while you're soaping up you can stop the flow. Do you like to soak in one of those oversized jacuzzi bathtubs? Cut back or just stop doing that for a while and switch to short showers.


There's more stuff of course, but if everyone just did these small things, it would really save a ton of water, especially if everyone involved as many people as there are in the Atlanta region.

If things continue to get worse, the next step of course will be a 100% ban on non-essential water use. Right now you can still water a FOOD garden if you grow food in your yard. That would stop. Then, they would ban car washes from using water, effectively shutting them down. Then, even pro landscaper companies would not be allowed to use water - at that point, a lot of folks in that business who haven't saved up their profits over the year would start to go out of business. We are probably 2-3 months away from maybe some of those, if we dont' get rain in that time period.

The hard fact is, if things get really bad, they could eventually place water restrictions on how much water people can use in their own homes. At first it would start out by simply telling each household, "You can use X amount of gallons per month", and if they go over that, they would pay $$$ for more. If that alone didn't work, they could literally tap off or cut off people who greatly exceed a certain amount. While it's not yet likely to get quite that bad, it COULD happen - they certainly never predicted it would ever get to the current state, either.

So it would benefit everyone to take some time right now to start doing some of the above. If enough folks join in now, it might prevent things from getting to that emergency state down the road.

[OhioNative]

One Cobb County official suggested in the paper this morning that Alabama, to whom we have to release a certain amount of water from Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee, needs to also have some water restrictions; apparently they currently have none. Might as well spread the misery. The Army Corp also has to release a certain amount of lake water to protect an endangered mussel in Florida, and this also affects the lake level.

[crystalblue]

Is desal even an option for Atlanta?