Note to self - check on the water!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7030889,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,303716,00.html

The state of Georgia gets an average of 50 inches of rain a year, has numerous rivers and streams and several federally funded reservoirs to hold their "excess" water for public use. In spite of this embarassment of water riches (well, compared to most western states, anyway) the citizens of Georgia have effectively just about run out of water this fall. That's pretty scary, if you think about it. What caused this to happen?

A drought which began just a year and a half ago has definitely taxed water reserves. Critics also cite poor planning, which allowed several opportunities to build state funded reservoirs to boost the federal reservoir system to pass by the wayside due to corporate selfishness and political posturing. (One of the pushes to build more reservoirs was apparently deliberately scuttled when construction companies discovered they wouldn't be able to build and sell expensive, fancy homes on the new "lakeside lots"...) Another problem, at least reading between the lines here, seems to be rampant consumavore water usage by the 9 million residents of the state and a near total lack of planning to deal with the water needs of the state's burgeoning population.

Let's face it - a one year drought, while unfortunate, isn't enough to make a well-run state water system run nearly completely dry. Heck, I've lived in areas where the residents get by on a quarter of the annual rainfall that Georgia normally gets, and droughts of 5-7 years in a row are not uncommon. While the water situation at the end of a long drought can be pretty scary, I've never seen one even close to the desperate situation facing the citizens of the peach state now. All nine million of them.

If I'd had to guess a year ago which state would be facing a water crisis this year, I certainly wouldn't have named Georgia! I'd probably have guessed one of the western, water-poor states - but I suppose relatively water-poor states probably have a much better grasp of the need to conserve their precious fresh water supply.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this. When the current drama is over, will the citizens of Georgia learn to reign in their usage and invest in their fresh water infrastructure, or will they continue on blindly until the next water crisis hits and sit around pointing fingers at everyone else again? (If this situation doesn't illustrate the utter futility of relying upon governments and human cooperation and foresight to "save us" from climate change and Peak Oil, I don't know what does - nine million people sat around on their collective butts and let themselves run out of WATER, for pity's sake!)

Note to self: get some good, solid information on the municipal water supplies locally, and see how much more we can conserve here at home.