The Atlanta Regional Commission's Chick Krautler continues to blame the Corps of Engineers for Lake Lanier's low water levels, as though the agency's operation of its dams on the Chattahoochee-Apalachicola river system is the major impediment to unlimited water availability for all current and future Atlantans ("Low-level operating plan," @issue, June 6).

Never mind the millions of gallons of water that are removed from the lake and river and never returned as a result of more new development in metro Atlanta and electric production. Forget the hundreds of millions of gallons wasted through water-system inefficiencies, outdated plumbing, poorly designed rate structures, wasted outdoor watering and national-record overreliance on septic systems in suburban counties.

Krautler complains that the corps' new interim operating plan for the reservoirs in the Chattahoochee-Apalachicola system doesn't do enough to allow Lanier to store rainwater — arguing that Lanier cannot sustain major flows in the Chattahoochee "over any extended period of time."

He notes, "You simply cannot drought-proof an entire basin with a reservoir [Lanier] that controls less than 9 percent of the basin's water."

Krautler's solution seems to be to pretend that Lake Lanier is not part of the Chattahoochee River system anymore — that it, much like the development-focused 16-county Metro Water Planning District, is not intimately connected to downstream communities and water users.

What is obvious is that you can never "drought-proof" a metro area that grows by a million people every decade while repeatedly failing to plan for sustainable growth and invest in measures to use water more efficiently.

Local governments in metro Atlanta welcome and approve new developments on a daily basis, with little certainty that water will be available for newcomers in the decades to come. There is talk about water conservation, but no funded incentives and mandates from state leaders. In fact, the only new conservation measure passed in the 2008 legislative session was a three-day sales-tax holiday on water-efficient appliances (Oct. 2-5, 2008).

Georgians use more water and more energy per person than the national average. With the relatively small watersheds of North Georgia, droughts occurring on regular cycles and spiraling population growth, we have no choice but to use every drop efficiently and to stop wasting electric energy.

We also have the responsibility to acknowledge that we can do a much better job of managing our water than we have been doing for the past four decades. Other cities have led the way — from Boston and Seattle to Los Angeles, Austin and San Antonio.

In Boston, the metro area has grown to 3.4 million people while cutting its water use to the same amount the region used in 1911. An investment of $40 million in a real water-conservation program from 1987 to 2006 saved Boston taxpayers close to half a billion dollars that would have been needed to develop new water supplies.

The Corps of Engineers' new operating plan may not do enough to help Lake Lanier, but the corps is under no legal obligation to supply Atlanta with water.

It's up to metro leaders to act responsibly: roll up their sleeves, stop blaming others and change the way this region is growing and the way water supplies are used.

If Boston, Seattle and San Antonio can do it, we can too.

Sally Bethea is executive director of the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper.