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Letter to the Editor - Water Woes
5 comment(s)
Originally Published Oct 12, 2007, 8:52pm
(Updated Oct 12, 2007, 9:08pm)
At this time the Southern Region of the United States is stricken with a severe drought. The water reserves in lakes such as Lake Lanier are nearing all time lows. The Corps of Engineers is dumping water at a reckless rate to save a few mussels and Sturgeons. If the drought should continue, the Army Corp of Engineers ill-advised massive release of vital water will endanger the very existence of cities such as Atlanta.
Could there be a five year drought? The American and Canadian dust bowls in the prairie lands from 1930 to 1939 were caused by severe drought conditions and this clearly demonstrate the possibility of such a catastrophic disaster. At this time Lake Lanier and others are grossly mismanaged due to inadequacy of current legislation, improper priorities and shear foolhardy adherence to outdated and faulty guidelines. Shouldn’t the water supply for large metropolitan areas have the highest priority instead of small power plants, fish and mussels?
Even if the drought is broken the lake levels are still allowed to wildly fluctuate while no thought given to erosion. When the lake levels are down there is no plant life to retain the silt and dirt. Millions of tons of silt and dirt are constantly eroded into the lake.
Artificial lakes have a limited lifetime before they are silted up. The fish we are protecting today will surely die in the next century when the lake can no longer hold the quantity of water needed for their (and our) survival. We are also destroying the breeding grounds for the natural fish in our lakes.
In addition, we are killing millions of one species in a vain effort to save a few of another. Every time they lower the lake millions of Lanier’s native mussels die.
These mussels are a major food item for valuable wildlife such as muskrats, otters, and raccoons. They are natural filterers and improve water quality by straining out suspended particles and pollutants. Large mussels can filter several gallons of water in a day, and they help to remove and store contaminants, making the water more fit for human uses. Because of their filtering capacity, mussels are an integral part of the natural purification process in rivers and lakes. They are particularly useful in removing algae and suspended particles from turbid and organically enriched waters near wastewater facilities.
As a concerned citizen, I’m asking people to write the President and the Congress to encourage them to:
The President should immediately:
1. Use his power as Commander and Chief to order the Secretary of the Army to conserve water needed for our cities.
2. He should issue an executive order that, in this case, provides that human need for water has priority over the Endangered Species Act and the need of a few small power generation facilities.
The Congress should:
1. Propose legislation to redefine the Corps of Engineers' water priorities that, in this case, provides that human need for water has priority over the Endangered Species Act and the need of a few small power generation facilities.
2. Do everything in your power to stop the senseless release of excess water.
3. Investigate and correct the management problems in the Corps of Engineers. The New Orleans levee problems, the water release blunder due to a faulty gauge (In spite of e-mail warnings) and the unbridled release of water for mussels demonstrate a disregard for human needs at the highest levels within the Corps of Engineers.
4. Stop the wild fluctuations in the lake level that cause erosion and will lead to an early death of the lake. The lake is silting and future generations will go without water and bear enormous cost removing silt.
5. Increase the full pool lake level as a reserve for drought conditions.
6. Allow more freedom in dredging, encourage and rip rap, allow measures to trap silt such as silt barriers which the Corps at the present time will not allow. Provide tax credits for individuals and businesses for these purposes.
If the drought continues, there is very little time left to avert a disaster that will dwarf the human suffering and damage caused by hurricane Katrina.
Respectfully,
Fred Baumann
4955 Bay Court
Cumming, GA 30041
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Comments
5 comment(s) on this page. Add your own comment below.
This is an excellent article. I hope a lot of folks take action to try and avoid the pending Lake Lanier disaster. The Corps is forecasting a Lake Lanier level of 1051.9 on November 9, about 6 feet lower than today, just four weeks from today, and lower than the Lake has ever been. There is a possibility, according to Corps computer modeling that the Lake could go down to 1039, 30 feet below full pool shortly after the 1st of the year. These future low Lake levels would be a disaster for the economy of Georgia especially in the Lake Lanier area where Lake recreation makes a big contribution to our economy and property values.
I wholeheartedly commend Mr. Baumann for his well written water article. I recognized Mr. Fred Baumann’s name from a very publicized recent run-in with the City of Cumming where he was arrested at the City of Cumming Fairgrounds for passing out religious literature, jailed for several days by the Police Chief Mike Eason without a lawyer, then prodded before a kangaroo court where he was falsely found guilty of violating the City Parade Ordinance. To add insult to injury Mr. Baumann was not allowed companionship of his Bible while murdering terrorists are allowed the Koran in their cells.
Fortunately for Mr. Baumann, and those who have benefited from his unselfish, Christian values, his bogus City of Cumming conviction was overturned by Forsyth County Superior Court Judge Bagley. Now it certainly appears that Mr. Baumann is not only concerned with the salvation of the lost souls of sinners but also the sinful way the Corps of Engineers is wasting the most valuable resource we have other than our children who just might be seeing the latter days of Lake Lanier.
For me, I’ll add to my list of valuable community resources Mr. Fred Baumann who was sorely mistreated by the City of Cumming and by the content of Mr. Baumann’s article here today also by the Corps of Engineers. It is such a shame that mild mannered souls such as Mr. Baumann have to live in a community where decent men and women are regularly attacked and jailed for what amounts to shear stupidly on the part of some community officials. This article more than proves that Mr. Baumann and his likeness is what this community needs to make it a better place to live in. It is just too bad that the City of Cumming officials didn’t see this as well. I’d be very interested in what else our distinguished Mr. Baumann has to say.
I don't know about anyone else, but I am a homeowner who is taking the conservation of my water VERY seriously. Unfortunately for me and others like me, so many people/businesses are not taking it seriously enough, thus OVER-using a precious resource. I just don't hear/see anyone really making changes. Until something is done to alleviate our water resource problem, WE have to take action in our homes/businesses to make it happen and show we are serious: USE AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE-ONLY WHAT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. And PRAY.
For the last ten to twelve years people have been talking about the region running out of water resources as the region's population exploded and we began to have more frequent droughts. Yet nothing major was done to slow the growth and /or upgrade and expand the water infrastructure. The water restrictions in many counties allowed people to water as much as three times a week until very recently. Any good steward of water knows that watering the grass three times a week is not necessary, but yet scores of ignorant individuals ran their sprinklers every other day unchecked for months--sometimes even when it was actually raining! The lack of action on the part of the government to plan for the growth in all areas and to crack down on waste early in the game is the direct result of greed, stupidity and a very apathetic electorate. I wonder just how many people will bother to write or call their elected officials about the situation even now. Maybe when they go to turn on the tap and nothing comes out, but for now it is quite likely that they are more concerned about what they will watch on TV, what sales they will hit at the mall this weekend or what their favorite ball team is up to. Civilization as we know it can not expect to survive the continued neglect of its people.
Thank you Mr.Baumann for an excellent, reasonable, sane editorial. I would like to republish this elsewhere, or at least post the link. We in this county, which is overwhelmingly Republican and Libertarian, must put PRESSURE on Gov.Perdue to take emergency action, beginning while he is on his Trades tour in Asia now. Political Correctness has got to be stopped. Political Correctness is saving minor species downstream while millions of humans will be impacted in about 80 days. This by the way is typical of the insane militant environmental movement, whose humanists are remarkably inhumane, and who value nature and despise their fellow citizens. Their attitude is "there are far too many of us anyway, and we shouldn't even be here". Well a drought would go a long way to begin death and illness for millions in the N.Ga. highly populated areas. Who is in charge? Who is going to throttle down Dekalb and Fulton counties to cooperate in water conservation, as is occurring in Forsyth, Cherokee, etc.? Who is going to lead an aggressive campaign to say enough is enough? We need another citizens Northern Arc movement to effect change now!
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