Policy Drought: Water Resource Management, Urban Growth, and Technological Solutions in Post-World War II Atlanta (2011)
Hardy, Eric M. (Author)
Georgia Institute of Technology
Usselman, Steven
Melosi, Martin
Bayor, Ronald
Flamming, Douglas
Nobles, Gregory
Melosi, Martin
Flamming, Douglas
Nobles, Gregory
Edition Details: Advisor: Usselman, Steven; Committee Members: Bayor, Ronald, Flamming, Douglas, Nobles, Gregory, Melosi, Martin.
Physical Details: 319 pp.
Language: English
By the dawn of the twenty-first century the City of Atlanta was facing a crisis of water quantity and water quality. It was involved in two-decades worth of litigation with the states of Alabama and Florida over access to surface waters that originate within Georgia, a legal dispute that threatened to severely reduce the city' ability to provide water to its growing metropolitan population. In addition, city officials were in the beginning stages of a four-billion dollar, court-ordered program of improvements to its wastewater infrastructure that was intended to reduce the amount of pollution that spewed into its local rivers and streams. This dissertation examines the origins of these water-related problems by exploring the challenges that Atlanta's public officials, engineers, and activists faced in planning and implementing an effective environmental policy, with particular emphasis placed on the era of post-World War II metropolitan development. Specifically, it focuses on the city's historical efforts to achieve the comprehensive management of the area's water resources, the technological systems adopted and solutions proposed, and the political and social milieu that facilitated or hampered these endeavors. Comprehensive water resources management was a neglected and delayed policy approach that was undertaken in the City of Atlanta only after overt threats of federal intervention. This study argues that although the area's mid-century regional planners advocated for intergovernmental cooperation in order to manage Atlanta's limited water supplies, their recommendations were undermined by fragmented local governance, timid political leadership, and public indifference. It further suggests that Atlanta's water supply managers, through increases in the scale and scope of their operations and a reluctance to increase customer rates, facilitated and encouraged greater water consumption, which, in turn, placed intense burdens on both the natural hydraulic cycle and the city's wastewater facilities. Lastly, it argues the citizen activists as well as state and federal regulators have utilized the federal court system as a blunt planning instrument when Atlanta's leaders displayed their seeming incapacity to handle the environmental strains of uncoordinated metropolitan development.
...MoreDescription Cited in Dissertation Abstracts International-B 75/05(E), Nov 2014. Proquest Document ID: 1498137281.
Similar Citations
Book
Tim Stroshane;
(2016)
Drought, Water Law, and the Origins of California's Central Valley Project
(/isis/citation/CBB260419535/)
Book
Muehlmann, Shaylih;
(2013)
Where the River Ends: Contested Indigeneity in the Mexican Colorado Delta
(/isis/citation/CBB001420370/)
Book
Wishart, David J;
(2013)
The Last Days of the Rainbelt
(/isis/citation/CBB001420378/)
Book
Lucas Bessire;
(2021)
Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains
(/isis/citation/CBB448006872/)
Book
Jeremy J. Schmidt;
(2019)
Water: Abundance, Scarcity, and Security in the Age of Humanity
(/isis/citation/CBB568175092/)
Thesis
Peterson, Maya Karin;
(2011)
Technologies of Rule: Empire, Water, and the Modernization of Central Asia, 1867--1941
(/isis/citation/CBB001567280/)
Book
Richard T. Kingsford;
(2017)
Lake Eyre Basin Rivers: Environmental, Social and Economic Importance
(/isis/citation/CBB620985266/)
Book
Walker, J. Samuel;
(2009)
The road to Yucca Mountain: The development of radioactive waste policy in the United States
(/isis/citation/CBB001180172/)
Article
Taylor, Vanessa;
Chappells, Heather;
Medd, Will;
Trentmann, Frank;
(2009)
Drought Is Normal: The Socio-Technical Evolution of Drought and Water Demand in England and Wales, 1893--2006
(/isis/citation/CBB001034156/)
Article
James Beattie;
Ruth Morgan;
(2017)
Engineering Edens on This 'Rivered Earth'? A Review Article on Water Management and Hydro-Resilience in the British Empire, 1860-1940s
(/isis/citation/CBB671867232/)
Book
Andrea Ballestero;
(2019)
A Future History of Water
(/isis/citation/CBB757249631/)
Book
Skye Borden;
(2014)
Thirsty City: Politics, Greed, and the Making of Atlanta's Water Crisis
(/isis/citation/CBB354411221/)
Book
Melosi, Martin V.;
(2011)
Precious Commodity: Providing Water for America's Cities
(/isis/citation/CBB001212518/)
Book
Cosens, Barbara;
(2012)
Columbia River Treaty Revisited: Transboundary River Governance in the Face of Uncertainty
(/isis/citation/CBB001420368/)
Article
Kristina Söderholm;
Roine Wiklund;
(2009)
Infrastructural Systems and Technical Change: Learning from the Establishment of a Water- and Wastewater System and the Electrification of a Railway Line in a Nordic Climate at the Turn of the 19th Century
(/isis/citation/CBB191956462/)
Book
Paolo Bacigalupi;
(2016)
The Water Knife
(/isis/citation/CBB052570770/)
Book
Geoff Beeson;
(2020)
A Water Story: Learning from the Past, Planning for the Future
(/isis/citation/CBB415070926/)
Article
Rita Padawangi;
(2017)
Building Knowledge, Negotiating Expertise: Participatory Water Supply Advocacy and Service in Globalizing Jakarta
(/isis/citation/CBB197152200/)
Book
Matthew Gandy;
(2014)
The fabric of space: Water, modernity, and the urban imagination
(/isis/citation/CBB322385433/)
Book
Steven C. Schulte;
(2016)
As Precious as Blood: The Western Slope in Colorado's Water Wars, 1900-1970
(/isis/citation/CBB179787340/)
Be the first to comment!