Lake Lanier up for public discussion

The last time the federal government tried to update its operations manual for Lake Lanier and four other reservoirs on the Chattahoochee River, it touched off a tri-state water war.

Nineteen years later, with Georgia, Alabama and Florida still battling over how to divide the river, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is trying again.

But officials have said the three-year, $5 million effort could be sidetracked by several variables, including pending lawsuits, lack of funding and extreme weather events, such as a worsening drought or floods.

The corps is conducting public meetings this week and next to receive input on factors the updated operations manual should include. The corps uses the manual to determine how much water it releases from Lanier during droughts, which is at the heart of the water fight.

Georgia wants the corps to keep more water in Lanier, metro Atlanta’s primary water source; Alabama and Florida want the corps to release more downstream to maintain a nuclear power plant near Dothan, Ala., and to protect Florida’s oyster industry in the Apalachicola Bay. Florida also is concerned over the health of protected species, including freshwater mussels and the Gulf sturgeon, a prehistoric fish.

One item the corps will not consider as part of the updated plan is raising Lanier by two feet. Vern Gwin, who until recently was the corps’ project manager for the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin plan update, said raising the lake would mean reallocating the water and that request would have to be made separately.

Lanier supporters, including businesses, homeowners and lake users, have been pushing the corps to raise Lanier as a buffer against future droughts. The North Georgia lake, surrounded by million-dollar homes and vacation cabins, is on track to fall below its record low level set last December.

The corps’ public meetings in Georgia, in an open-house format, will be in LaGrange Wednesday night, Marietta on Thursday and Gainesville on Oct. 29.

The Marietta meeting is from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Cobb County Civic Center’s Hudgins Hall, 548 S. Marietta Parkway.

For more information, go to www.sam.usace.army.mil.