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On behalf of Hall County, I would like to respond to the letter writer who mistakenly implied that the county’s proposed Glades Reservoir would significantly impact the water level of Lake Lanier while doing little to help our limited water supply (Your Views, Tuesday).
Based upon an extensive study of the proposed reservoir — using the same modeling analysis employed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — it has been determined that Lake Lanier’s monthly average level would be reduced, at most, by less than an inch. Furthermore, this small dip in the lake level would only occur when water from the Glades Reservoir is withdrawn under the most severe drought conditions.
Downstream of Lake Lanier, the impact would be much less, even during a drought. Under normal weather conditions, the impact on Lake Lanier would be so insignificant that it could hardly be measured.
The July 17 federal court ruling on Lake Lanier has changed everything for Hall County and other communities that rely on the lake for drinking water. That is why we must be proactive with reservoirs like Glades to plan for a day when additional withdrawals from Lake Lanier are restricted.
This forward-looking project is not about driving growth; it is about meeting the water needs of a population that is projected to top 400,000 by the year 2050. We’re going to need this water even with the state’s aggressive water conservation targets that our community is already implementing. And if the federal court ruling leads to further restrictions, we’ll need it much sooner.
The Glades Reservoir certainly is not a knee-jerk reaction to the recent federal ruling. It has been a high priority for Gainesville-Hall County that dates all the way back to the early 1990s.
Now, along with our Cedar Creek Reservoir in a separate watershed, we have the good fortune and opportunity to control our destiny in the near and distant future. For the sake of our children and future generations, we must come together as a community to support this most important project.
Nikki Young
Public Information Officer, Hall County
It’s not misguided to sincerely question health care proposal
Harold Lott’s beliefs about opposition to health care reform seemed innocuous and rather devoid of reason and fact until the inevitable truth behind his opinion came through, and as he said, became the same "old tired, worn-out excuse."
Any opposition to the proposed health care reform proffered by the Obama administration is undoubtedly perpetrated by some vast right wing-conservative movement predicated on fear and ignorance, and such opposition is without question, racially motivated. Talk about your "tired-old" and "worn-out" excuses.
Yet, I would like to say that Mr. Lott was somewhat right in implying that most Americans want reform. But what he and the current administration fail to understand is that the majority of Americans are more than satisfied with the quality of service given to us by our health care providers. What we are dissatisfied with is the cost and availability of that service.
These two fundamental flaws in the current system can be addressed with regulatory and tort reform along with fostering competitive situations amongst the insurance companies for our individual needs. What we don’t need is a total revamping of the health care system, which would take the partial control of our care from our employers and put its total control into the hands of bureaucrats who would no sooner give up their current plans for the one they are proposing to unleash on the American public.
Mr. Lott would have us believe that there are two types of people in this world: those who are willing to grow and learn and those fixed in their mindsets. I would say the two types of people that exist are those who demand to exercise their personal right to choose for themselves and are willing to bear the responsibility inherent in that choice and those who would have government do their choosing for them so as to avoid any personal responsibility at all.
The bottom line here is that Mr. Lott started his rational debate with his naive utopian idea of all of us being defrocked of our ego-driven, liberal-conservative, left-right, Democrat-Republican facade for a better world, then immediately undermines his own ideals and credibility by referring to anyone having an opposing view to Obama’s health care proposal as "ignorant," "fearful," "racially motivated," "misguided" and unable to think for themselves.
I would suggest to Mr. Lott that anybody who does NOT passionately question without prejudice the Obama health care proposal has had their limbic system removed with a frontal lobotomy so as to be blindly and passively led, without motivation, to the nearest government funded health care facility.
Do we really need another hastily conceived, social engineering program that is destined to fail, much like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Obama and the other Democrats would have us believe that we have a moral imperative and a personal responsibility to insure the 46 million uninsured and uninsurable. What about our personal responsibility to our future generations who would bear the burden of indebtedness and excessive, big government spending?
If the truth be told, I don’t think this is the kind of change we were all hoping for, is it?
David W. Dudley
Dawsonville