Corps rewriting Lanier water rules
BY Ken Edelstein • November 23, 2009
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is moving forward with work on its court-ordered plan to deny metro Atlanta water from Lake Lanier, even as Gov. Perdue’s Water Task Force met at the Governor’s Mansion today to come up with alternatives to Lanier’s water.
Georgia Public Broadcasting reports that the Corps “has started to rewrite the manual it uses to control water flows in the Chattahoochee river basin.” A federal judge ruled earlier this year that the Army had never actually been authorized to allow the Atlanta region to use Lanier’s water and must come up with a plan to send the lake’s water downstream as soon as 2012.
Perdue appointed the 80-member task force to come up with a contingency plan in case the state can’t work out a deal with Alabama and Florida to get a share of the water. Environmentalists fear that the business-dominated panel will emphasize the construction of costly reservoirs, that might be lucrative to developers and potential contractors, over the kinds of conservation measures that other region’s long ago adopted.
Says GPB’s Susanna Capelouto:
Congressmen from all states have said the governor’s need to get together and solve the problem. Currently however, Georgia has the most to loose and is in a tough spot.
Florida and Alabama would come out ahead if the judge’s ruling stands and may have little incentive to restart negotiations.
Georgis got into this predicament after the state gambled to take its chances with a combative courtroom strategy, rather than giving way to some of Alabama and Florida’s demands in the 20-year-long interstate “water war.” There’s still a slim chance that the federal court ruling will be overturned or that Congress will grant Atlanta Georgia access to theLanier’s water. But that appears unlikely if Georgia doesn’t agree to more aggressive conservation measures.
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