DanceATL & National Water Dance
2022 Dancing Out of Time!
2020 Dancing for Our Lives
Check out who else is participating in National Water Dance in Atlanta:
Not from Atlanta? You can see how your community is participating in the link below:
NWD Projects: Where Are We Dancing?
Dancing Out Of Time!
“The mission of NWD Projects is to promote dance as a vehicle for social change by increasing awareness of environmental and social issues through collaboration with the artistic, educational and scientific communities. NWD Projects makes use of the internet to create a national community, which offers platforms for educating students and supporting artistic exchange among professional artists, while engaging and informing the public.”
Water Conservation Efforts in Atlanta
The Black Nature Conversation
The Black Nature Conversation series began in 2020 to promote dialogue between black dance artists exploring their relationship with dance and nature. These conversations can be found in this link or on the National Water Dance instagram page @nationalwater_dance.
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper works to educate, advocate and secure the protection and stewardship of the Chattahoochee River in order to restore and conserve the ecological health for the people and wildlife that depend on the river system.
The Georgia Conservancy
The Georgia Conservancy works to protect Georgia through ecological and economic solutions for stewardship, conservation and sustainable use of the land and its resources.
Conserving Water At Home
“The Chattahoochee River provides more than 70% of metro Atlanta’s drinking water to approximately five million people. Yet the watershed area north of Atlanta is among the nation’s smallest to serve a major metropolitan area.”
The small watershed size, the growing population in Atlanta and the everchanging climate demands that we conserve our water resources so that we have enough clean water today, tomorrow and for future generations. Chattahoochee Riverkeeper seeks to do just that through education, investigation and advocacy.
Rainwater Harvesting
One way that Chattahoochee Riverkeeper (CRK) is working to help Atlanta residents conserve water is through rainwater harvesting. A rain barrel is a system that collects and stores rainwater from roofs that would otherwise be lost from runoff. CRK has been working with the Coca-Cola Company to provide rain barrel kits and host workshops that allow homeowners in Atlanta to use this system of water conservation. Here are some fun facts about rainwater harvesting:
- A rain barrel saves the average homeowner about 1,300 gallons of water during the summer.
- Gardens prefer rain water which is free of chlorine, lime and calcium.
- A 1,200 square foot roof yields 700 gallons of water per inch of rain.
Energy & Water
- “Roughly 3.5 million people depend upon the Chattahoochee River. By 2050, the number of people depending on the river may double.”
- Thermoelectric Power Plants use nearly half of all surface water withdrawn in Georgia to provide electricity to the area. That’s 2.7 billion gallons of water a day.
- Saving energy saves water: It takes an average of 2 full bathtubs of water to generate the electricity needed to power a refrigerator for 1 day.
Ways to Conserve At Home
- Use Water Efficiently
- Fix system leaks
- Retrofit plumbing
- Use water-efficient appliances
- Reduce outdoor water usage ⟹ Harvest rainwater
- Use Energy Efficiently
- Use efficient light fixtures
- Set thermostat low in the winter & high in the summer
- Use energy-efficient appliances (energy star logo)
- Weatherize your home
- Conduct water, energy and gardening self audits to see where you can improve your water conservation efforts at home!
History of Water in Atlanta
Chattahoochee River
The Chattahoochee River flows from the Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia and travels along the Alabama state border toward Florida where the river turns into the Apalachicola. Humans have settled along the banks of the Chattahoochee River dating as far back as 1000 B.C. As these ancient civilizations died off due to European diseases, native survivors from other areas migrated to the river valley, now known as Atlanta, and formed the Creeks tribe. The Creeks admired the river for acting as a food source, transportation channel, and an element of spirituality. The Creeks named the river based on the native terms, chato meaning “rock” and huchi meaning “marked” or “flowered”. It is believed that it was named as such for the colorful granite found along the river. Read more to find out more about the Chattahoochee River and how it impacts us today.
Lake Allatoona
Lake Allatoona was created as a response to the frequent floods of the Etowah River. The building of the lake was authorized by the Flood Control Acts of 1941, but construction was delayed to 1946 due to World War II. Allatoona Lake and Dam were completed in May of 1950. The city of Cartersville and the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority use the lake as a water resource. The creation of the Allatoona Lake and Dam has prevented about $80 million in flood damages since 1950. Additionally, the lake serves the purposes of hydropower generation, water supply, recreation, fish & wildlife management, water quality and navigation in addition to flood control. Read more about the creation of Allatoona Lake HERE.
Lake Lanier
Lake Lanier is a man-made lake along the Chattahoochee River that was created as a form of flood control with the Buford Dam. The project was approved in 1946 under the River and Harbors Act and construction began in 1950. The project was given a $45 million budget, half of which was used to buy land from private owners and relocate families and businesses that resided in the area. The lake was completed in 1957 but some of the farms and housing structures can still be found underwater in the lake. Today the lake is a destination for recreation and was even used for the passing of the Olympic Torch during the 1996 Olympic Games. Read more about Lake Lanier.
