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Published Friday, November 27, 2009 in Local

Task force mulls options to replace water from Lake Lanier

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Times-Herald

The informational report given to members of the state's Water Contingency Task Force this week includes cost and yield information on just about every possible option for supplying water in the metro-Atlanta area if access to Lake Lanier is cut off.

The options include a desalination plant in Savannah, transfers from West Point Lake and wells in south Georgia.

The report shows, however, that the presumed water needs for the metro-Atlanta area can be more than satisfied with conservation, wells, reservoir expansion, new reservoirs, and a possible transfer of water from Lake Burton in north Georgia to the Soque River, where it would flow into the Chattahoochee River and be piped to Gwinnett County's treatment plant.

The report was given to the members of the water task force at a meeting Monday. They will meet again Monday to discuss the information, ask questions, and fill out a survey.

"We have been charged, as a task force, to look at everything ... for the cost benefit analysis," said state Rep. Lynn Smith, R-Newnan.

Smith is a member of the task force, along with three Coweta natives and about 80 other business, government and environmental leaders and utility professionals.

"Now that we've got all these facts, we can start putting things into place," Smith said. The task force's next step is to "begin the process of assessing and prioritizing options."

The information presented says that it is impossible to make up for Lake Lanier by 2012.

That's the deadline set by Judge Paul Magnuson in July. Magnuson ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had erred in allocating Lanier water for metro-Atlanta water supply without Congressional approval.

Magnuson's ruling stated that, barring Congressional re-authorization or an agreement among Georgia, Alabama and Florida, operation of Lanier's Buford Dam must return to 1970s levels, and only the cities of Buford and Gainesville will be allowed to withdraw water from the lake.

Smith said she was impressed that so many members of the task force were at the meeting. "It was packed," Smith said. "It shows how seriously everybody is taking this."

If Georgia can't come to an agreement with Alabama and Florida, or get congressional re-authorization for Lake Lanier, Magnuson's ruling will take effect.

That will leave the entire metro-Atlanta region with a 280-million-gallon-per-day shortfall. With sharing of water between surplus and deficit counties, the shortfall would be 250 million gallons per day.

"There is no way we can meet the 2012 gap. There is just no way," Smith said. "It kind of looks like we are on our bloody knees begging" to have the deadline extended to 2015 or 2020, Smith said.

The deficit is certainly not uniform. Coweta County is listed as having neither a deficit nor a surplus. Fayette County is listed as having a 10 million gallon per day surplus. Other metro-counties with a surplus are Cherokee, Rockdale, Clayton, Henry and Douglas.

Bartow, Paulding and Cobb counties would see a small deficit. Fulton County would have a 73 MGD deficit, and DeKalb County would have a 42 MGD deficit; those deficits equal between 20 and 50 percent of total water supply for Fulton and DeKalb. Hall County would have an 18 MGD deficit, over 50 percent.

Gwinnett and Forsyth counties would be in the worst shape -- losing 95 percent of their water supply. For Forsyth, that is only 28 MGD, but in Gwinnett it is 104 MGD.

For the purposes of the deficit study, only the water resources within a county's boundaries were considered, Smith said. Coweta's lack of a surplus does not include the Coweta County Water and Sewerage Authority's agreement to buy large quantities of water from Griffin.

Smith said she was concerned about that decision, so she asked about it. "They said ... the dynamics of everything changes drastically with Lake Lanier," she said. And that Griffin "is probably eventually going to be able to negotiate a contract with someone who is more willing."

The metro-area deficit could be covered as early as 2015, with a capital cost of $3 billion. That equals $800 for each million gallons per day. The projected 2015 deficit is 310 MGD.

By 2020, the projected 350 MGD deficit could be covered at a cost of $410 per MGD -- a total cost of $2.3 billion.

The vast majority of cost of the Lake Burton transfer, of 50 MGD, is the cost of running a pipeline from the Chattahoochee River around Lake Lanier to Gwinnett's treatment plant on the banks of Lanier. The cost could be cut 95 percent, the report says, if the water could flow through Lake Lanier.

Reservoir expansion, conservation, the Burton transfer, and construction of all planned reservoirs in the metro-area would provide more than 500 million gallons per day, according to the charts in the report.

Expansion of four reservoirs and construction of five reservoirs could yield some 345 MGD.

If the stream flows below the reservoirs could be reduced, the report says that some proposed reservoirs could actually yield much more water each day.

The proposed Bear Creek Reservoir in South Fulton County, which was recently halted by a judge's ruling, is expected to yield 10 MGD. If the stream flows were reduced, it could yield up to 135 MGD, according to the report.

Yield for the Glades reservoir in Hall County could go from 85 MGD to 100 MGD, and an expansion of the Dog River Reservoir in Douglas County could add either 50 MGD or 205 MGD.

Other future reservoirs could produce approximately 135 MGD.

Conservation measures, on top of existing measures, could provide up to 35 MGD of savings by 2012.

Another measure -- "indirect potable reuse" -- would put two new pumping stations on the Chattahoochee River, and one at Jackson Lake, to withdraw water equal to the upstream wastewater discharges. That Chattahoochee water would then have to be pumped up river to two drinking water treatment plants. One withdrawal point would be at McGinnis Ferry near the Fulton/Forsyth/Gwinnett border, and one near Cedar Grove in South Fulton. The Lake Jackson water would be pumped 54 miles north to Gwinnett.

This indirect reuse could yield approximately 250 MGD, at a total cost of $4.3 billion, and a per-million-gallon cost of $950.

The more exotic water supply options, such as desalination, are expensive.

A 200 MGD desalination plant in Savannah, and the piping to get it up to Atlanta, would have a capital cost of $13 billion, according to the report, and an operating expense of $2,238 per million gallons. The average per-million-gallon cost for desalination is $6,000.

Transferring water from West Point Lake would yield 100 MGD, at a cost of $1,110 per million gallons. The water would be piped from West Point to "a new regional water treatment plant located near Union City," according to the report. Once treated, that water would be piped through DeKalb and Fulton counties to Gwinnett County.

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