Three governors say a water-sharing agreement is in the works

By Jeremy Redmon

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

MONTGOMERY – The governors of Georgia, Alabama and Florida emerged from a two-hour meeting here Tuesday and declared they had made progress toward a compromise in their states’ decades-old water rights dispute -- but more work needs to be done.

They have asked their teams of negotiators to work out a water-sharing plan they could agree on and present to their state legislatures for approval early next year. They didn’t offer specifics about what that compact would say. But any such agreement must ultimately be sent to Congress for consideration, they said.

Gov. Sonny Perdue called their meeting productive and candid.

“There really was a different sense in our meeting today. I think there was a will to resolve this,” Perdue told reporters as rain tapped on the roof of the building where they met. “We have agreed that frankly the time for a resolution is now and really the time for rhetoric is over.”

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley spoke first to reporters after their meeting.

“Are we there yet? No, we are not,” said Riley, who last met with Perdue and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist about the issue two years ago.

“But I really do believe we are closer now than we have been within the last two years. With the attitude everyone displayed today, I am still very optimistic we are going to be able to come up with a common solution that will benefit every one of these states.”

Crist spoke last to reporters.

“We all have the desire and the inclination and great teammates ... to get this thing done and go ahead and do what is right,” Crist said.

All three governors know the clock is ticking. They are set to leave office in January 2011. Perdue and Riley face term limits, and Crist is running for the U.S. Senate. The three recently came under pressure from their states’ members of Congress, who urged them to meet as soon as possible to begin negotiating.

Georgia must work out a water-sharing agreement with Florida and Alabama by July 2012 or it will see its supply of drinking water from Lake Lanier reduced substantially. The Army Corps of Engineers has announced it will tighten the spigot at the federal reservoir then to comply with a federal judge’s order in the case, unless such an agreement is reached.

In his July ruling, Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson said the corps has permitted Georgia communities to withdraw water from the reservoir for decades, even though Congress didn’t authorize its construction for that purpose. The Atlanta region has also been taking water downstream from the lake that should have flowed to Alabama and Florida, the judge ruled.

Magnuson has given the states and Congress three years to decide how the reservoir should be used before restricting access to the lake to levels from the mid-1970s, when Atlanta was a fraction of its size. Georgia is appealing the judge’s ruling.

A task force Perdue set up to study alternatives announced last week that none of the options it has studied could make up for the loss of drinking water from Lake Lanier by 2012. Instead, the task force is considering costly options to cover the gap in 2015 or 2020. Perdue declared Friday that Georgia’s best option is to fight to keep Lanier the Atlanta region’s main source of drinking water.

Pressed for specifics on what type of agreement they could reach, Riley said: “What we are trying to do is have an apportionment of the reservoirs -- of the inflows -- that adequately reflects the needs of every one of our constituents. If we get much more specific than that, then it is going to be something… that I think adds an impediment to the success.”

When a reporter asked if a truce had been reached, Perdue put his arms around Riley and Crist and declared: “I think I want a group hug here.”