Tri-State Water Wars History
Origins of the Dispute
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) built Buford Dam and created Lake Lanier fifty years ago. The Lake’s authorized purpose was to provide flood control, hydropower and navigation. As time progressed, the booming population of metro Atlanta began to rely on Lake Lanier primarily for its water supply and the Corps began issuing interim contracts to municipal water supply providers without any evaluation and without any Congressional authorization. In 1989, the Corps released a report which recommended that a portion of the water being used for hydropower should be reallocated for water supply in the Atlanta region.
In response to this recommendation, the State of Alabama filed a lawsuit in 1990, challenging the Corps’ reallocation plan. The lawsuit claimed that reallocating the water would favor Georgia’s interests and that the Corps had violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by ignoring the environmental impacts of reallocating water on the downstream states. In 1990, Florida intervened raising similar NEPA concerns as well as concerns regarding the impacts of the Corps’ dam operations on federally-listed endangered species. Georgia also petitioned to intervene, largely siding with the Corps.
20 years of conflict
In the hopes of achieving a resolution, all three states and the Corps put the lawsuit on hold and agreed to conduct a comprehensive study of all of the water issues affecting the ACF Basin and then to determine a fair allocation. A compact was drafted and then ratified by each state’s legislature as well as the U.S. Congress. The compact created a structure to allow the states to continue working together to reach a consensus on ACF Basin reallocation and management.
Unfortunately, the states could not reach an agreement, and the compact expired without resolution in 2003.
Recent Court Rulings:
On July 17, 2009, federal judge Paul Magnuson held that water supply is not an authorized purpose of Lake Lanier and ordered the Corps to seek Congressional approval for future water supply withdrawals. The judge’s ruling was stayed for three years to allow Georgia time to seek a legal agreement with Florida and Alabama. In the absence of a timely resolution, management of Lake Lanier would resume to the “baseline” operations of the mid-1970’s. In his decision, the judge placed some responsibility for Lanier’s unauthorized use for water supply on those local governments who allowed "unchecked growth" to increase tax revenue, but failed to plan for the water resources unchecked growth requires. The judge warned that “the problems faced in the ACF basin will continue to be repeated throughout this country, as the population grows and more undeveloped land is developed. Only by cooperating, planning, and conserving can we avoid the situations that gave rise to this litigation.”
A copy of the 96-page decision maybe downloaded here: In re Tri-State Water Rights Litigation, Case No. 3:07-md-01, July 17, 2009, at 94-95.
Following the July 2009 decision, the Georgia parties were dealt a second blow when they attempted to clarify Judge Magnuson’s order in order to secure an appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. On October 5, 2009, Judge Magnuson denied the Georgia parties’ attempt to appeal, stating that his July order did not constitute an injunction and therefore was not subject to appeal.
The most recent blow to Georgia’s litigation efforts came on July 21, 2010, when Judge Magnuson rejected the state’s challenge of the science U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service used to evaluate the impacts of the Corps dam operations on federally protected mussels and sturgeon.
A copy of this recent decision may be downloaded here: In re Tri-State Water Rights Litigation, Case No. 3:07-md-01, July 21, 2010.
In the same opinion, the judge also strongly urged the Corps to consider the impacts of current and future water supply withdrawals on their operations during the course of the ongoing water control manual update. UCR is closely monitoring the Corps manual update process.
Click here to download UCR's most recent comments to the Corps on their ACF Water Control Manual update.
Water Contingency Task Force
In response to the federal judicial ruling, Georgia’s Governor Perdue established a Water Contingency Task Force in October 2009 to explore options for addressing the water shortfall caused by the ruling invalidating the use of Lanier for Metro Atlanta drinking water. UCR and the Georgia Water Coalition (GWC) provided Task Force staff with specific recommendations for water conservation and efficiency,
Click here to download UCR's letter to the Governor's Task Force
Click here to download the GWC's letter to the Governor's Task Force
On November 23, consultants presented a long list of water supply options for metro Atlanta to the Task Force. At that time UCR and GWC's recommendations were not reflected in the findings, which gave no serious weight to conservation measures and instead focused on expensive, highly-engineered solutions that cannot meet our water supply needs by 2012.
On December 11, Governor Perdue's Water Contingency Task Force met again and presented draft recommendations that appeared to move away from highly-engineered water supply solutions such as interbasin transfers (piping water from other river basins into Metro Atlanta) and construction of expensive new reservoirs. The Task Force recognized that reaching a settlement with Alabama and Florida, thereby allowing Metro Atlanta some access to Lake Lanier, is Georgia’s “best option,” both environmentally and economically.
During the 2010, the state legislature made some progress with water conservation efforts. The Georgia Water Stewardship Act is the most comprehensive water efficiency and conservation legislation approved to date in Georgia. It’s a good start, and we applaud the state legislature for its passage. Now it's time to capitalize on this momentum! Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and American Rivers have analyzed the likely water savings from the law’s provisions and concluded that it will save about 23.4 million gallons a day, which represents about 3.5% of the water demand in metro Atlanta during the 2000s and 2.1% of the demand anticipated in 2035. We will need to do more to sustain a prosperous and environmentally healthy Metro Atlanta region in the future—given the projected population growth and anticipated future droughts. Through leak detection and repair, conservation pricing, retrofitting, and landscaping changes we can get there.
To see our analysis of the water savings achieved by the Georgia Water Stewardship Act and how we can move forward from here., click here to download a PDF of our Fact Sheet, "How Much Water Will Be Saved by the Water Stewardship Act?"
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