In land now known as the United States, there was a flourishing city-state. It potentially had a high and dense population for the time, had tall buildings for the time, a large urban culture, and was located near Chaco Canyon in the four corners area. Around 1200 AD, it emptied out and split up into different cultures. They were what we call the Anasazi indians, and the reason the city-state emptied out: Water.
It is no different now than in 1200AD that cities need water.
You may have noticed we've had a couple of wet years. So, after years of Lake Lanier getting close to becoming empty, are we over this drought thing?
No!
There's an old saying: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me"
Because we're in a wet period, everyone seemed to have forgotten the drought, including the governor.
Metro Atlanta is in more danger than it ever has, and our governor Nathan Deal has done practically nothing to help us. We are headed for a drought in seven or so years that threatens to stall our growth if we don't do something about it. It is time that you ask Deal what he plans to do to prevent the next devastating drought. He should be taking on Tennessee, right now, to get our land back. He should not be waiting. You should also be prepared to vote him out of office on this issue.
Why is Lake Lanier, Allatoona, and your lawn is pretty much doomed if nothing happens to solve this impending problem? The reason is because our area goes through a cyclic weather pattern that oscillates between wet and dry periods. These periods last about 7-10 years, varying somewhat in length. I have attached a graph to demonstrate this. Leave it to a meteorologist to explain why the pattern is. I'm no weather man, but I can read a graph.
So, assuming we are a couple years into a wet period, then we're looking at probably something in the range of 5-7 years before we are seriously in trouble. It will be much much worse than before.
Why? For various reasons below:
- Increased population: Metro Atlanta's growth rate is still very high.
- Florida and Alabama lawsuits: This could limit our usage of water. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-state_water_dispute for more info.
Tennessee's governor mocked the referendum and is not taking it seriously. He is not ready to work with us to figure out a solution.
Our legislature authorized the Attorney General to sue the state of Tennesee over the border. Then nothing happened after that. If we wait until the next drought, it could be too late and could stall our growth. That means our home values going down.
The lawsuit needs to go forward now, while we aren't suffering from water shortage. Then we can negotiate with Tennesee. There's swaps we could make, such as helping connect Chattanooga to the airport via high-speed rail.
In conclusion, the governor needs to step it up and stop being reactive, or we need to let him know in the voting booth what we think of his lack-luster response.