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Our Own Impact on Our Own River
The Middle Oconee Bears the Burden of the Drought
E verybody in Athens keeps asking, "What's
going to happen when we run out of water?"
That's a good question, and a fair one. As has
been noted in Flogpoie already this fait it's
not an easy question to answer; some answers
will be forthcoming, though, when the Athens-
Clarke County (ACC) Commission holds a special
work session on the topic Oct. 25. The "water
question" is a way of asking what the doomsday
scenario is, or what we'll do when we can no
longer avoid the catastrophe. The sad part is
that—as far as the Middle Oconee River is con
cerned—the catastrophe may have already come.
When Athens began its emergency water with
drawals from the Middle Oconee, just as October
began, the United States Geological Survey
(USGS) stream gauge on that
river at Atlanta Highway quit
working. Mo surprise: those
gauges—operated by USGS all
over the country—are often
finicky, especially in extreme
conditions. By Thursday, Oct.
4, USGS sent someone out to
check the gauge, clean the mud
out of it, get it working again,
and make an accurate mea
surement. That measurement
brought the bad news: The
Middle Oconee River registered
an all-time record low flow of
only 1.4 fys. (A week later,
after rising some, the flow
dropped again to 2.6 f*/s.)
"Cubic feet per second"
[fys] doesn’t mean much to
most people, but here's some
context: the median daily flow
for Oct. 4, over 73 years of
record, is a bit shy of 200 f*/s.
In other words, 200 f*/s would
be a more normal flow in autumn, a dry time of
year. By contrast, a flood in early March of this
year saw a recorded flow of 3,000 fys. So a flow
of 1.4 f 5 /s is next to nothing.
For most of the last month, as you can see
at http://waterdata.usgs.gov/
ga/nwis/rt, the river's flow has
varied in a range between 10 and
100 f*/s—still below the median
of nearly 200, and most of the
time below the 45 f*/s mark used
as a threshold, at least at this
time of year, for being able to
withdraw from the river and also
putting wastewater into it (which
we are, all the time).
Below a certain threshold, in
other words, we don't withdraw
water from the river, either to
treat and use, or to replen
ish the Bear Creek Reservoir in
Jackson County. Bear Creek is a
pump-storage reservoir, meaning
it mostly consists of river water
pumped into it. It was depleted
very quickly in August and
September of this year, because
we were making heavy use of it
at precisely the time when we
couldn't be replenishing it with
river water. Typically, it would carry us through
such a stretch—that's what it was designed to
do—but this year that dry stretch has been too
long and too dry.
Thus, the Georgia Environmental Protection
Division (EDP) has allowed us to take up to 15
million gallons per day from the Middle Oconee
for a period of 45 days. That's been a saving
grace for Athens this fall, but its effect on the
river cannot be ignored.
Besides its nearly drying up completely,
what has the effect on the Middle Oconee River
been? The good news is that there have been
no reported large scale fish kills like the one
that hit the Morth Oconee River in early August.
Generally, fish can find refuge in deeper pools for
a little while, but with flows so low, it's hard to
imagine that some fish haven't been stranded.
Fortunately the level of dissolved oxygen (DO)
has stayed at about six milligrams per liter
(mg/l) or higher, even downstream of Athens'
Middle Oconee wastewater treatment plant. If it
were to drop below 5 mg/l, a die-off would be
more likely, and EPD would make us stop with
drawing water and then quickly figure out what
to do next.
That's because our wastewater is as important
to this picture as our drinking water. The river
needs to be able to assimilate the wastewater
that we discharge into it. The Middle Oconee
wastewater plant does a better job of treatment.
and treats a smaller volume of wastewater, than
its older counterpart (the one with the odor
problems) on the North Oconee River, which is a
good thing, because it betters the river's chances
of avoiding a fish kill like the one on the North
Oconee thi« summer. Perhaps ironically, that's
also the reason that the emergency water with
drawals are coming from the Middle Oconee, not
the North Oconee. The North Oconee probably
wouldn't be able to handle it.
At the Middle Oconee wastewater plant, the
wastewater has flowed at about 3.5 million
gallons per day lately, according to ACC Public
Utilities Director Gary Duck. (That's almost 5.5
f’/s). At very low river flows, the wastewater
effluent has been a substantial portion of the
river's flow. Stilt water quality, which is EPD's
main concern, appears not to have been too
damaged yet. though it may take time to learn
what the effects on the river's living things has
been. Water quantity in the river, on the other
hand, has been sacrificed to our needs.
The Bear Creek Reservoir has served us well
in this year's drought, but the drought has out
done it. In this regard, it's possible that Athens'
experience in 2007 is especially relevant to the
statewide water planning pro
cess thaf s currently underway.
Among the many concepts
present m discussion of future
water management in Georgia
is the idea that North Georgia
will need more reservoirs—
more water storage capacity-
in the future. Most reservoirs
built these days are a lot like
Bear Creek: they're "off-stream"
reservoirs that are not built
on rivers themselves ia good
thing for rivers), but which use
river water via pump-storage
arrangements. But what does
Bear Creek tell us about build
ing more off-stream reservoirs?
It may simply be true that if
a drought is severe enough,
reservoirs—no matter how
many—can only do so much.
Speaking of reservoirs,
there's another one in Clarke
County thaf s long been consid
ered an emergency water source: Lake Chapman
at Sandy Creek Park. Without even Sgures on how
much water that small lake holds, it's hard to say
what use it might be in the present situation. It
is being looked at, though. Who knows? Maybe
using Lake Chapman's water could
prevent the kind of extreme low
flows that have occurred on the
Middle Oconee? If so, maybe it
could come into play earlier the
next time there's a drought this
bad?
Speaking of the statewide
water plan, many Athens resi
dents have noted that the water
problem here is not just a lack-
of-water problem, ifs also a
growth problem. A lot of people
across the state who've been
observing the statewide water
planning process have noted that
it is all about growth, too. As the
state water plan slouches toward
January and the legislative
session—when God only knows
what will happen to it—ifs
worth starting to ask what les
sons have been learned by towns
like Athens so far in the drought
of 2007. Ifs worth remembering
the Middle Oconee River, toe. The river's done a
lot for us.
Ben Emanuel
The Georgia Water Council (www.georgiawatercouncil
org) will hold a hearing to receive public input on a
revised draft of the Comprehensive Statewide Water
Management Plan at the Georgia Center for Continuing
Education Masters Hall on Thursday, Oct. 18 at 6 p m
The Middle Oconee River at Ben Burton Park on Sunday, Oct 7,2007, at a very tow flow of about 15 fVs
The Middle Oconee River at Ben Burton Park on May 12. 2006, at a relatively normal flow for that
date of over 300 P/s.
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