Atlanta residents may be wondering – and worrying – what plans the state has for a worst-case drought scenario where their taps go dry, but government officials say they just don’t think that’s going to happen.

Instead, state officials are focusing their drought emergency planning efforts on select communities north and east of Atlanta that they consider at greater risk of severe water shortages.

“We have not gotten to the planning stages for someone running out of water because we don’t think we’re even close to being there,” said Tim Cash, chairman of the state’s Drought Response Working Group, when asked what would be done if Atlanta ran out of water.

“Right now, I don’t have a vision for a worst-case scenario,” he said.

Sure, Cash and other officials said, imaginations can run wild to envision the city of Atlanta without water. But that’s not something the state or city thinks will happen.

But if taps were to go dry, Georgia has longstanding disaster plans and vendors in place to get water to any community hit by drought – just as it would deliver water after a hurricane or a terrorist attack, state officials said.

More than 60 percent of Atlanta’s drinking water comes from Lake Lanier, which last month hit its lowest level since it was constructed in the 1950s. Climatologists expect the drought to continue well into next year. Even if steady rainfall returns, it could take months – perhaps years – for the lake to recover. The fear is the rain won’t come, and Lanier will continue to drop.

Part of the reason Lanier is so low is because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the reservoir, is required to release water downstream daily for industry and environmental needs. Lanier’s water eventually flows to Florida’s Apalachicola River, home of two federally protected mussel species.

On Nov. 16, the corps cut the amount of water that flows into Florida, and that combined with conservation and recent rainfall has bought more time for metro Atlanta’s primary drinking water source. In mid-November, state and federal officials estimated 79 days of readily available drinking water left

in the lake. Now it’s more than double that. And the corps is considering cutting Lanier’s releases even more.

Full Story: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/12/04/worstcase
_1205.html