Published Sunday, January 18, 2009

An Alabama view of long-running tri-state water war

Editorial

Editor's note: Today's guest editorial is from the Gadsden (Ala.) Times. It provides an Alabama viewpoint of the long-running tri-state water war.

The long-running border war involving water between Alabama, Florida and Georgia hit a major milestone Jan. 12 when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a petition by Georgia seeking to have the high court review a ruling from a lower court.

For two decades, the states have fought over how much water could be drained from Lake Lanier, which is just north of Atlanta, to provide for Georgia's capital.

Georgia had a secret agreement with the Corps of Engineers to allocate more water from Lake Lanier downstream to feed the urban sprawl that is Atlanta. The metropolis has become a beast with a bottomless appetite for water -- and not just for drinking.

To some Georgians, there is Georgia and then there is Atlanta, which is almost a state unto its own, apart from the rest of the Peach State.

The agreement, giving more of Lanier's water to Atlanta, would drastically diminish the water downstream for Alabama and Florida, which could have been devastating for the two states.

In February, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., ruled the secret agreement was illegal according to federal law. That decision led to another round in the water war, when Georgia petitioned the Supreme Court, whose ruling Monday will not be the end of the fight.

As long as Atlanta continues to rapidly expand, and the drought continues to choke the Southeast, the three states will fight for every last drop of water. (Yes, we know the drought has eased in many areas, but pockets of dry conditions remain.)

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley called the Supreme Court ruling a "key milestone because the legal framework governing the Appalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin has now been conclusively determined. The legal principle established in this case should now be applied to validate Alabama's challenge to Atlanta's current illegal consumption from the federal reservoirs in North Georgia."

While Riley revels in Monday's victory, Alabama's fight with Georgia is not quite finished.

The direction Georgia might head now is unsure, but other reservoirs, rivers and streams could be the state's target. The Coosa River, which originates in Rome, Ga., where the Oostanaula and Etowah rivers meet, could become involved in the fight.

The tributaries that eventually form the Coosa are tied in with Lake Allatoona, just north of Atlanta. The river basin provides about 124 million gallons of water daily, with the largest user being the Cobb-Marietta, Ga., Water Authority, which is located outside the river basin's area.

And Atlanta is not just taking water from the Coosa's sources. It is also putting its waste back into the tributaries. An estimated 98 million gallons of treated wastewater is released back into the rivers and streams daily.

The water war has previously affected Atlanta -- along with the rest of North Georgia -- southeastern Alabama and northern Florida. But if Atlanta tries a water grab involving Lake Allatoona, then the fight will hit a lot closer to home.

Here's hoping the U.S. Supreme Court and all the lower courts rule on that potential fight the same. The fate of Neely Henry and Weiss lakes and the river that flows through our town and the draw it provides for our city vitally depends on such a ruling.