Perdue: Lake Lanier Georgia's best option for drinking water

By Jeremy Redmon

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Gov. Sonny Perdue declared Friday that Georgia’s best option in the tri-state water dispute is to fight to keep Lake Lanier as the Atlanta region's main source of drinking water.

Other options for capturing and controlling more water could cost the state billions of dollars and jack up water rates by as much as 54 percent, according to the governor’s Water Contingency Task Force.

Besides, the task force reported Friday, those options could not be done quickly enough to cover the Atlanta region’s projected 280-million-gallon-per-day deficit. That deficit could result in 2012 if Georgia fails to work out a water-sharing agreement with Alabama and Florida and loses Lanier as a source of drinking water, task force members said.

The federal judge in the longstanding water rights case between the states has given Georgia until July 2012 to reach such an agreement. After that, under the judge’s July ruling, the Atlanta region would be forced to find other sources of drinking water.

“Lake Lanier is absolutely our best option,” Perdue told his task force before it met at Georgia Tech Friday. “It is economically and environmentally the best option. We will continue to pursue as vigorously as we can the reauthorization” of water withdrawals from Lake Lanier.

Earlier this week, Republican US Rep. Nathan Deal of Gainesville made an initial attempt in Congress to do just that.

Deal -- who is campaigning to replace Perdue as governor -- proposed that Congress should direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to authorize all federal reservoirs in Georgia for water supply usage. Deal asked that his proposal be included in a sweeping water resources bill next year.

Perdue, meanwhile, is scheduled to meet with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Alabama Gov. Bob Riley Tuesday in a fresh effort to work out a compromise.

“I would hope that Gov. Riley and Gov. Crist and I could have a group hug and we could agree on a water allocation between our three states,” Perdue told reporters after the task force meeting.

Perdue’s task force is preparing to send its final recommendations to him by the end of this month, in time for state legislators to consider them when they convene in January. Among the options the task force is considering are starting more voluntary water conservation measures, stopping leaks in the region’s water systems and building more reservoirs.

A federal judge ruled in July that Congress never authorized Lake Lanier to be used for the region's drinking water when the lake was created with federal funds in the 1950s. Atlanta has been illegally tapping the lake for decades, taking water from the Chattahoochee River that should have flowed to Alabama and Florida, U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson ruled.

Magnuson ordered that Atlanta's allocation of water from the lake revert to 1970s levels if Congress doesn't approve a solution within three years. On Nov. 18, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it would tighten the spigot at the lake based on Magnuson's ruling if the three states don't reach a compromise by July 2012. Georgia is appealing Magnuson’s ruling.

When a reporter asked Perdue how Georgia could get a time extension from the judge if it can't reach a solution by July 2012, the governor replied: “That remains to be seen.” But he later said he expects the judge will consider the task force’s work as an indication “that we have taken steps -- we have not sat back and waited on the Manna from Heaven.”