Stimulus money earmarked for Lake Lanier study, management

Lake Lanier will get an $8.3 million boost in federal stimulus money — as well as $3 million to complete a study tied to the management of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin — according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The money is part of a $293 million package of stimulus funds going to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Mobile (Ala.) District. Planned projects include rehabbing roads, making buildings more energy-efficient and making the dam safer.

The federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act appropriated $4.6 billion to the corps for its Civil Works program. The Army Corps released its list of projects this week.

The fight over who controls the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River is tied to how metro Atlanta manages its water. Georgia, Alabama and Florida have been battling for years on how to divide that area.

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.

Lake Lanier, a popular federal reservoir, had more than 1 million fewer visitors compared with 2005, the last year it was full. The decline amounted to 13 percent, down to 6,656,103 visitors last year, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.