Atlanta weighs Dawson County reservoir proposal

By Dan Chapman

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

An Atlanta City Council committee will consider the construction of a reservoir on 10,000 city-owned acres in Dawson County.

The transportation committee will take up a motion Sept. 17 requesting Mayor Shirley Franklin “entertain discussion” of the property’s sale, or a portion of, to the Etowah Water and Sewer Authority. The authority and an Atlanta developer propose building a 2,000-acre reservoir and piping the water 38 miles south to Atlanta’s waterworks. Private money would finance the estimated $650 million Shoal Creek Reservoir.

Atlanta’s airport authority bought the property in 1971 with hopes one day of building another airport. The Dawson Forest site, 50 miles north of downtown, is largely forested.

The reservoir proposal comes on the heels of a district court judge’s ruling that metro Atlanta illegally taps Lake Lanier for much of its water. Judge Paul Magnuson threatened to sharply curtail Lanier flows to the region if Georgia, Alabama and Florida -- all heavy users of the Chattahoochee River – can’t agree on a water-sharing arrangement within three years.

The city council, and Mayor Franklin, will weigh the Dawson Forest sale if the transportation committee, with jurisdiction over the airport, determines that further review is necessary.