Northeast Georgia badly needs some of those thundershowers being predicted for the area for the rest of this week.
How dry is it?
Rainfall at Athens is less than 60 percent of the average for the past 30 years through six months, the flow of water in the Middle Oconee River is about 80 percent lower than average for July and the water level at the Bear Creek Reservoir is dropping quickly — or at least it was before Tuesday afternoon's showers.
“The reservoir level is dropping like a rock,” commented Eric Klerk, manager of the Jackson County Water and Sewerage Authority.
Since the authority relies on that 505-acre reservoir to serve its customers, that’s a major concern for Klerk.
The reservoir gets the vast majority of its water from the Middle Oconee River. Three massive pumps can each move 20 million gallons of water a day (mgd) from the river into the lake — when there is enough water in the river.
Prior to Tuesday, there had been insufficient water in the river to enable the authority to replenish any of what Jackson, Clarke, Barrow and Oconee counties remove from the reservoir or even the water that evaporates every day in 100-degree heat. The pumps have been still about two weeks.
The river is at historic low-flow levels, with just 43 cubic feet of water per second passing the gauge on Middle Oconee near Arcade. The mean stream flow for July is 263 cubic feet per second, according to Mark Crisp, a consultant with Global Energy and Water Consulting, LLC.
As of Friday, July 6, the level of the Bear Creek Reservoir was 692.22 feet, almost three feet below full pool. When the lake is full, the level is 595 feet.
“We go through this every year,” Klerk observed. “This is the time of the year we’re supposed to make our money.”
At the moment, the member counties of the Upper Oconee Basin Water Authority are in Level 2 of their drought contingency plan. That requires members to reduce usage by five percent over the two previous months. All of the counties, utilizing the reservoir have cut sales by much more, by restricting outdoor watering to the hours between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. one day per week. Even-numbered addresses may water on Saturdays and odd-numbered addresses on Sundays, although there are exceptions for hand-watering, for food gardens and for newly-installed sod. While once-a-week watering is sufficient to keep even fescue grass alive, watering restrictions cut into cash flow for water system managers.
Most of the time, Athens-Clarke gets its raw water from the Middle Oconee River and North Oconee River, but because of low river levels it is now withdrawing water from the Bear Creek Reservoir.
Athens- Clarke’s usage peaked at 16.5 mgd on July 7. Peak usage from the other three member counties totaled 14.2 mgd on July 1, but has been running at just under 13 mgd since.
There are no watering restrictions for customers of the Commerce Water System, which gets its water from a 300-acre reservoir on the Grove River in Banks County. That reservoir remains full and has proven to be significantly drought resistant in the past.
