Fla., Ala. ask court to halt Lanier withdrawals

Walter F. George Dam on the Chattahoochee River in southwest Georgia, near the borders of Alabama and Florida. (Dave Bender/file)

Florida and Alabama are asking a federal court to stop the Corps of Engineers from supplying water to Georgia from Lake Lanier, the federal reservoir outside Atlanta.

The states said they would file a motion in U.S. District Court Friday to invalidate the corps' operations on the lake. They argue that the withdrawals are illegal without congressional approval.

The reservoir is at the heart of the states' two-decade-old water wars in which Georgia maintains it needs more water to serve a rapidly growing population, while Florida and Alabama argue that the state's withdrawals harm their downstream interests.

(AP)

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Atlanta mayor hopes for truce in 3-state water war

West Point Lake. (Dave Bender/file)

Mayor Shirley Franklin is hopeful President-elect Barack Obama will make good on a promise to unite Georgia, Florida and Alabama over the issue of water.

In October, Obama said he would call for the states' governors to begin negotiating again on water sharing.

Speaking to the Atlanta Press Club Tuesday, Franklin said she considers overhauling the city's troubled sewer system one of hermost challenging accomplishments, but that the new president must bring regional governors to the table on water issues.

Franklin, who leaves office at the end of the year, says her successor will need to focus on what can be done to ensure a stronger future for Atlanta.

(AP)

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High Court Declines Georgia Motion Water Wars Case

Lake Allatoona: a bridge over troubled, and receding, waters (Dave Bender/file)

The U.S. Supreme Court will let stand a lower court ruling that threatens Georgia's long-term water plans for the Atlanta region.

The court's decision Monday raises fundamental questions about Georgia's rights to Lake Lanier, a massive federal reservoir outside Atlanta. It could also play a key role in deciding the
long-running water wars among Georgia, Florida and Alabama.

The case involves a 2003 water-sharing agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers that would have allowed Georgia to take far more water from Lanier for drinking water.

Florida and Alabama contested the pact. A lower court agreed, saying the Corps didn't have authority to use the lake for that reason.

Georgia had appealed to the Supreme Court for another review.

(AP)

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Drought expected to hold firm

Experts say there is no end in sight for Georgia's drought. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers predicts continued below-normal rainfall in parts of the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa and Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basins. The Corps says the lower portions of the basins have benefited the most from this year's storm season. But the northern reservoirs of the basins did not receive the same benefits from these storms, and conditions haven't improved in North Georgia.

(Associated Press)

Feds: Water Talks Have Failed

Lake Lanier: very dry dock (Susanna Capelouto/file)

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne acknowledged Saturday that White House-brokered water negotiations among Alabama, Florida and Georgia have failed.

Without an agreement, the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies will begin implementing a water-sharing plan of their own, Kempthorne said in a letter to the governors.

"Regrettably, it will necessarily be a solution being directed to the states instead of our much hoped for solution coming from the states," he wrote in the letter, released Saturday.

Kempthorne said the talks, which began last fall, yielded more progress in three months than at any time during the last 18 years.


West Point Lake: dock, no boats. (Dave Bender/file)

But he said the negotiators could not reach a comprehensive agreement and called it "unfortunate" that the states are moving forward with ongoing litigation.

"It is our hope that developments in the courts will not frustrate further progress in resolving the remaining technical issues we face together," he said.

The three states have been feuding for nearly two decades over water rights in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint and the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa river basins, which run south through Georgia into Alabama and the Florida panhandle.


Chattahoochee River at Columbus: shoals and tires. (Dave Bender/file)

Georgia is fighting to hold back more water in federal reservoirs around Atlanta to serve its growing population.

Florida and Alabama argue that Georgia hasn't adequately planned for growth. The extra withdrawals, they argue, would damage the environment and dry up river flows into their states that support smaller municipalities, power plants, commercial fisheries and industrial users like paper mills.

With a record drought creating a critical water shortage last fall, President Bush dispatched Kempthorne to try to settle the dispute.

But the talks appeared doomed from the start, with Florida almost immediately backing away from an initial agreement to allow Georgia to temporarily hold back more water in Lake Lanier outside Atlanta as the governors worked toward a longer-term pact by Feb. 15.

Then Georgia lost a major court ruling in a case that raised questions about whether the federal government can allocate the state more water from the river basins without first getting approval from Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court.

After a series of meetings, the governors missed the Feb. 15 deadline but said they would continue talking until March 1.

The talks appeared to unravel further in recent days, with Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue saying the water problems facing Florida and Alabama are not as critical as Georgia's and accusing the other states of approaching the talks without the same urgency as Georgia.

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley responded by saying that prospects for a negotiated solution were "indeed dim" if Perdue could not acknowledge that Georgia's needs are no more critical than those of the other states.


Lake Allatoona: bridge over troubled waters (Dave Bender/file)

Against that backdrop, Georgia officials said Saturday they will not make a severe drought declaration for the lower Flint River Basin in the southwest part of the state.

(The Associated Press)

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