Today Georgia suffered a defeat in its nearly 20-year water war with Florida and Alabama. Today a federal appeals court threw out an agreement between Georgia and the Army Corps of Engineers for water rights to Lake Lanier. The 2003 agreement gave Georgia about a quarter of Lake Lanier's water and is the foundation of the state's long-term plans for supplying drinking water to the rapidly growing Atlanta region. Alabama and Florida argued that Georgia doesn't have any legal right to the federal reservoir, which was initially built for hydropower.
