View Full Version : Georgia Resident consumes a Niagara



metro
11-15-2007, 09:51 AM
Amid Drought, a Georgian Consumes a Niagara
By BRENDA GOODMAN
New York Times

ATLANTA, Nov. 14 — A day after Gov. Sonny Perdue asked God to forgive Georgia for being wasteful with its water, county officials in the wealthy suburbs northeast of Atlanta confirmed Wednesday just how profligate one consumer had been.

A homeowner in Marietta, Ga., used 440,000 gallons in September, or about 14,700 gallons a day. By comparison, the average consumption in the United States is about 150 gallons a day per person, and in the Atlanta metropolitan area about 183 gallons.

Month after month during a record-setting drought, the two-story, five-bedroom home owned by that consumer, Chris G. Carlos, a wealthy investor who is a member of one of Atlanta’s most well known and philanthropic families, has topped Cobb County’s list of residential users.

Robert Quigley, a spokesman for the Cobb County Water System, said Mr. Carlos had used an average of 260,000 gallons of water a month for the last year, about twice as much as the consumer next-highest on the county’s list. Mr. Carlos has apparently been using the water not only to flush nine toilets and maintain a swimming pool but also to refresh nearly four acres of lush landscaping around his white-columned, red brick home.

When his consumption figures were disclosed this week by WSB-TV in Atlanta, there was an immediate outcry from other homeowners, thousands of whom have been trying to conserve in the face of a drought that is draining the region’s reservoirs. Many are following state suggestions to reuse bath water to feed plants, or to flush toilets a bit less often.

“We’ve had a lot of people calling to gripe about this particular man,” said a woman who answered the phone for the Cobb County Water System. “He’s not real popular right now.”

The furor led Mr. Carlos to refer all inquiries to a public relations specialist, Joseph M. A. Ledlie, who said Wednesday that Mr. Carlos had only recently become aware of the severity of the water crisis and was now taking steps to conserve.

Mr. Ledlie said his client had cut water use by 73 percent from September to October and had vowed to work with water experts to cut it still further. Indeed, Mr. Quigley, the water system’s spokesman, said that for the last six days, Mr. Carlos had used an average of 2,000 gallons a day, which, at a rate of 60,000 gallons a month, is about 10 times the average for a Cobb County household but quite a reduction for Mr. Carlos.

In a written statement, Mr. Carlos himself, whose monthly water bills during the last year have averaged about $1,200 a month, said Wednesday, “I honestly didn’t realize the extent of my water use and regret I didn’t act sooner.”

For months, with the Southeast struggling through the worst drought it has endured in 100 years, governors from North Carolina to Alabama have called on residents and businesses to cut their water use. On Tuesday, Governor Perdue led several hundred people at the State Capitol here in a prayer for rain.

Many fellow homeowners say they do not see how Mr. Carlos could have missed news of the drought. But while he seems to have run afoul of public opinion, Mr. Quigley is quick to point out that he has broken no laws. An exception to mandatory restrictions that Cobb County has adopted on outdoor water use allows licensed professional landscapers to water new plantings for 15 days after installation.

“We understand that Mr. Carlos had engaged full-time landscaping services” in which planting was occurring continuously, in exploitation of the loophole, Mr. Quigley said.

Legal or not, that does not please his neighbors.

“With the water crisis that we’re in down here, I just think it’s ridiculous that he would take advantage of the situation,” said Ken L. Scott, who lives across the street from Mr. Carlos.

“It’s tragic for everybody down here,” Mr. Scott added, “because if you look at the lakes, they’re bone dry.”

The drought has already taken a severe toll on the region, economic and otherwise.

Since August, the town of Orme, Tenn., which has run out of water completely, has had to use an old fire truck to ferry about 20,000 gallons of water a day from nearby Alabama.

Last month, in the face of a mandatory 50 percent reduction in water use, chicken processors in North Carolina began trucking in water to run their operations.

A survey in the Atlanta area found that businesses that depended on outdoor planting and watering had laid off almost 14,000 workers in the last six months, and that number is expected to double before the end of the year, said Mary Kay Woodworth, executive director of the Metro Atlanta Landscape and Turf Association.

And on Wednesday, Pike Nursery, which runs a chain of 22 gardening stores in Georgia, North Carolina and Alabama, filed for bankruptcy in an Atlanta court, blaming the water shortage.

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Oh GAWD the Smell!
11-17-2007, 01:46 AM
How do you know you've got enough money?

When your personal water bill exceeds the amount of most people's monthly mortgage payments.

What a retard.

oneforone
11-18-2007, 01:29 AM
If I had that much land, I would have dug my own water well instead of using the city's system.

Midtowner
11-18-2007, 07:04 AM
One -- groundwater isn't *always* available.

Also, different states have different rules regarding the drilling of wells, even for domestic use.

That said, Georgia and other eastern states don't really have much experience in water conservation or water shortage, so I doubt they have very restrictive rules regarding the use of ground water.