Letters to the Editor
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Thanks, PTAG and all other
commenters who chose to take the high road and be gracious to all those greedy Southerners & Westerners who want their water. Let it be said from this resident of central Georgia that Atlanta would be far more likely to come looking to us for water first than to you, as 20 years ago our water authority had the foresight to build a huge reservoir. So while we suffered this summer in excessive heat and drought, and were operating under Level 2 water restrictions (odd/even outside watering restrictions/bans on daytime watering) we never really had water problems.
While I abhor the over development in Atlanta, it should be noted that as recently as 2002 we had a Democratic governor and Democratic Speaker of the House who had plans(the state had purchased the land) to build several reservoirs to supply the needs of the Atlanta Metro area, which is huge. When Repubs gained total control the plans went kaput and the land was sold/turned over to developers.
Our state suffered droughts as bad in the early 80's and in the 50's: difference: far less people. And Atlanta is not a monolith governmentally which is an immense part of the problem: there is little regional control as there are multiple and overlapping local governments;what there is must come from the state government which is largely controlled by special interests, i.e. business and real estate. Instead of sniping at each other, vis-a-vis water and other commodities, we should collectively root out the special interests with deep pockets which have thus far prevented government at all levels from planning for the commom welfare and longterm well-being of all of us.
In the short term, it would be nice if consuming water bottled commercially would become as unfashionable and restricted as smoking cigarettes.