Home > Jay Bookman > Archives > 2008 > August > 12
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Uh oh, and I do mean uh oh…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is potentially very big trouble….
WASHINGTON (AP) — Georgia suffered another setback Tuesday in its water feud with Alabama and Florida as a judge said he must first decide whether the Atlanta region has authority to continue using Lake Lanier as its main water source.
That fundamental question, U.S. District Court Judge Paul A. Magnuson said, could render other legal questions in the court battle “obsolete” and allow it to be resolved as early as January. He also said an appeals court ruling earlier this year that invalidated some of Georgia’s rights to Lanier would “undoubtedly affect” the litigation.
Magnuson’s decision came in response to a motion from Florida and Alabama in a nearly 20-year court fight over the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin. The case is being heard in a U.S. District Court in Jacksonville.
Georgia and its lawyers have long claimed that meeting metro Atlanta’s water needs was a congressionally mandated purpose for Lake Lanier. Personally, after studying the law and other documents, I have never been convinced by that argument. This suggests — but so far only suggests — that the judge is leaning the same way.
If so, it could mean Georgia has no legal claim to store water in Lanier for metro Atlanta, which would be an enormous setback.
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