Lake Lanier continues to drop at a rate of about a foot a week as the Army Corps of Engineers steps up water releases to keep stream levels up in a drought.
As of Tuesday the lake, Atlanta's getaway body of water located about 40 miles north of downtown, was down 12 feet from the last time it was at full pool in May.
It’s predicted the level will drop another 2 feet by the end of the month, so much so that the annual Lanier Parade of Lights -- where boats take to the water at night in early December in a flotilla with Christmas lights -- has been canceled.
That’s the bad news. The good news is the receding water has exposed or brought close to the surface underwater hazards that can be marked and identified with buoys. For about the past month, that’s been Rick Marton’s mission.
Most days Marton, a 69-year-old retired airline executive, boat pilot and volunteer with the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, consults a map that shows where hazards were exposed during the drought of 2007-2009, then heads out in his tug boat Little Toot to attach buoys at the sites.
On Tuesday morning he marked a spot that a few weeks ago was safe boating on a lake where most boats only need four feet of water to navigate safely.
“It’s just so crazy when the lake starts dropping like this,” Marton said. “People are used to getting in a boat and going and once they get away from shore it’s safe, but when it’s this low, it’s not.”
And we *just* got the running lights working on Bumbo so she'd be street-legal for night sailing. Sigh.
Oh well. Cheer up with this bit of awesomeness:
