Biggest Single Water User In Atlanta Is Gatorade Plant

Ah...I am reminded of the movie "Idiocracy" go see it. It's got everything you need!

No one in my small Missouricommunity waters their lawn and it shows....My grass been dead for months due to drought conditions, albeit not to the extent as Georgia.

I've always thought the Western states were the only drought stricken states. I think the biggest issue is future water practices on a federal level.......New Mexico Bill Richardson ( I believe it was reported here) advocates water rich states sharing (by force) water with the drought prone states.

18% leakage rate is criminal.

Grass Painting??? How dumb are these people???

Grass painting... lol

Seriously, lawns are a waste of time, money, and resources. In the picture above, if they had just planted trees in that massive front yard they wouldn't have to worry about painting or watering.

How long until the apocalypse?

Do people paint smiles on their faces as well? Paint themselves as model citizens? ... good neighbours? ... the perfect family???

When will people learn to live with reality?

Grass painting... incredible. In our city, Adelaide, South Australia, some new estates are using artificial turf in road median strip "gardens". I'm all for xeriscaping in this parched state, but replacing grass with plastic? Bleh.

One of the further tragedies of this story is that Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue is seeking a presidential override of some endangered species legislation that prevents them from releasing water from reservoirs. It's a classic case of "when the going gets tough, make someone else pay."

Its hard to feel much sympathy for these areas - they need to live with their choices and make some long overdue changes.

There is some justification in him calling for the stopping of the slight daily drainage of that lake. His people need to drink, after all. Of course, it's not necessary to stop the drainage completely. But slowing it down could benefit the people of Georgia without extensively harming the endangered species.

Of course, people could start conserving their resources, too, but that's just too much trouble. People are stupid, and they can't even realize that this is a consequence of their actions.

Also, what is ignored is that there's a nuclear powerplant downstream from the lake that depends on the water released from the lake. If it doesn't get that water, it'll melt down.

Do we paint smiles on our faces? Well we paint our lips and faces, make up is just the same as this.

Does anyone know WTF that "Grass paint" is made out of? They're website has zero info other than they claim it's "non-toxic" and "environmentally friendly"

Daniel, I feel the same way. I also don't think the rest of the world is going to have much sympathy for such an endemically gluttonous culture if the worst case Mad Max scenario occurs should things dry up.

Instead of taking from water rich states, why don't they just ask the businesses to move to the water rich states? Seems like the infrastucture and water resources in Georgia, and western states can't support any more growth. Asking residents to conserve and upgrading the water lines ultimately has it's limits.

Does anyone know WTF that "Grass paint" is made out of? They're website has zero info other than they claim it's "non-toxic" and "environmentally friendly"

no idea - but it sounds crazy!

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Yeah, makeup is paint-on embellishment ... but not a fake smile.

Clowns paint smiles on their faces.

Any more need be said?

Idiocracy is looking more and more like a documentary movie.

So, do any of the presidential candidates wrestle?

I question how accurate it is to state that the largest consumer of water in the Atlanta region is Gatorade.

What about Coca-Cola? They are headquartered in Atlanta and have several bottling plants in the area.

Gatorade is owned by Pepi. Maybe Coke has (more than) a little leverage when it comes to covering it's tracks.

At the same time, most/all major manufacturers are very efficient in terms of minimizing use/reuse/recycling of raw materials, including water.

BTW - I'm a Chemical Engineer who attended Georgia Tech (also in Atlanta) in the late 70's.

I live in Atlanta and stopped my outdoor watering months ago and started using "gray water" to keep my plants healthy. But get this, in Georgia it is ILLEGAL to use gray water. The law says that you can't recycle you own water. Georgia is such a hick state!

The absurdity of the city and/or state not completely shutting down all unnecessary usages of water in Atlanta right now is mind-boggling. Sadly, government officials will focus more on supporting the ongoing operations of business than they will actually being concerned about hydration of their constituents. This should be an interesting morality play as it winds itself out.

I seriously doubt Gatorade - of all people - is really the largest water user in all of the Atlanta MSA. But, I digress; the real problem is that the authorities (and residents) gleefully ignored the problem. We had a mild drought last year, little rain all winter long and then ran an extreme deficit all year long. Watering bans were meekly applied at first, and a full statewide absolute ban didn't actually take place until October. And yes, I pay $16/mo for water whether I use one gallon or 1,000. The real problem is that Atlanta is growing and our water supplies aren't. Without a conservation policy, we'll have to find alternate water sources. Many communities are already turning old wells that were shut down years ago for reasons having nothing to do with cost or safety.

This reminds me of something my sister-in-law told me about New Mexico. When their city was in drought, they encouraged everyone to plant drought gardens and remove their grass. Once they did, water use dropped so low, the water utility raised the rates because they said they needed more revenue.

so, be prepared, Atlanta, no good deed goes unpunished.

Being from a water rich state ( I can see Lake Superior from here in fact) i am not all that keen on shipping our water away, especially not without paying a hefty price, after all we are in drought and our lakes are low too. If we say "ok take our water" what are we saying? Keep doing just what your doing, don't change anything and don't worry anymore, you have unlimited water to waste now. Not that I think we are better up here we waste more just because we can, which is also criminal. I just think supporting an unsustainable practice is a silly thing to do.

Brawndo has what plants crave!

Electrolytes are what plants crave.

Maybe they can paint their dry lakebeds blue as well.

It's easy to say, "Well, too bad, you should have planned ahead." However, I'll bet there are very few areas that are prepared for a natural disaster of their own. And even those that are, sometimes nature kicks your ass anyway. We should find ways to help this situation, not mock it. The tables could turn with every season.

I live in the Atlanta suburbs and am stricken by the "it's their own fault" comments. Who is they? How can it be my fault if I never knew there was a problem? Atlanta has had several droughts before, restrictions were put in place, rain fell, the drought ended, and as far as we knew, life was back to normal.

As a regular citizen, I will tell you that the citizens of Atlanta were not notified of this serious situation. Even today the attitude by the media and government is that something will bail us out. They are encouraging conservation and we have an outdoor watering ban, but indoors, people can take 30 minute showers with no consequence. Most people I know, since being notified of the situation in September, are limiting showers to 5 minutes, using less bath water, recycling shower and bath water for trees, starting compost piles instead of using the garbage disposal, and saving water from the washing machine rinse cycle for cleaning and watering.

Yes, this is a man-made problem, but don't put it on the citizens. Yes, the government and city planners failed to predict the impact of the growth of the area on the water supply, but then again, who could predict the drought of the century? Politicians are not climatologists. Even our President refused to acknowledge global warming until recently (and believe me, I am NOT defending him, but remember the core of the South is hard-core conservative Republican... ie W all the way... even on global warming).

Of course I'm upset about this situation. I'm upset that I have invested in a house and property that will be worth nothing with no water supply. I 'm upset that the thousands of dollars I spent on trees (to help the envirnonment) may be lost after 9 years of nurturing them. I feel for the landscapers, car wash owners, tree trimmers, power washers, painters and many others who suddenly have no income.

Yes, it's man made, but it's time to stop blaming and start solving the problem. We knew of the potential of hurricane Katrina (also a man made problem due to global warming), but did we blame the people who made their homes their? Did we blame the people who chose to stay for staying? Or did we help them? Have a heart people!!

First of all, the corp. is draining 10 times the amount of water from Lake Lanier as is presently coming into it. Don't you think we should limit this drainage for now? There are hydro electric plants that need the water for cooling purposes but those endangered mussels(that aren't even an indigenous species!) are getting twice the amount of water they need. twice. Does anyone see what's wrong with this picture? Two years ago we had the rainiest summer on record and it felt like it rained every day. Does anyone remember this? Maybe if they built a few more resevoirs it would help. Most people don't know a few facts. There are no natural lakes below the Mason Dixon line, they're all man made. There is 100 times as much water in the ground as there is on the surface in all the lakes , streams, and rivers. 99.9 percent of all the fresh water on earth pours into the sea. Water is our most renewable resource. I would like to see a real study on the effects of landscape irrigation on the environment. Besides making our world green and beautiful, the green industry supports over 80,000 people in Georgia alone. Most water used for irrigation makes it way down river anyway, it's not bottled up and sent to other parts of the world. Have a vote in Georgia, green industry or gatorade plant. All that water used by gatorade and others doesn't go back into the water table. What does it cost to replace landscape plants that die from lack of water?

Don't worry though, when they run out of water FEMA will be there to save them and take them to the concentration camps that still detain many Katrina "refugees", (the lucky one who weren't executed in the astrodome gas chamber. Interesting side note: U.S. military deployed thousands of microwave crowd control tanks to cities across the nation just weeks before announcing the Atlanta crisis. I think the NWO knows that the people of Atlanta will meet them in the streets, giving them the perfect excuse to declare martial law.

He probably had a reverse osmosis on the entire house which has a ninety percent discharge rate.

I think in the future the water problem will be worse and worse. We need to spend lots of money to get clean water and their will be a shortage. The future looks kinda dark i think:(