No deal.

Georgia, Alabama and Florida will not meet today's deadline to end the tri-state water war.

The states have been litigating over the rights to water in Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee River for 18 years. Alabama also wants more water from Allatoona Lake and the Coosa River.

Today's deadline was set last fall by the Bush administration, which intervened in the tri-state dispute just as record-setting drought began threatening metro Atlanta's water supplies.

The federal reservoir is the main source of water for more than 3 million metro Atlantans. Winter rains have alleviated only some of the concern: Lanier could be vulnerable again by the end of summer if the drought continues to worsen.

Starting last month, the states' three governors dispatched their staffs to three meetings, including a two-day meeting this week in Prattville, Ala., near Montgomery.

Gov. Sonny Perdue's spokesman Bert Brantley said Thursday the Georgia governor has been "very involved" in the negotiations. But Brantley would not say how close the sides are to a long-term agreement.

"We want to hold off judgment on that until we see how much progress we made," Brantley said. "I do expect there to be a status report given [Friday] on what's been done."

Sarah Williams, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, said the sides are still "working together, still making progress."

She said negotiators are trying to schedule another meeting.

Alabama officials declined to comment.

The Feb. 15 deadline was set Nov. 1, when the three governors met in Washington with U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. At the time, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates Lanier, agreed to reduce the amount of water leaving the lake and going to Florida to meet a minimum flow requirement, set in part to protect two threatened and endangered mussel species.

Florida's primary concern is getting enough water via the Chattahoochee into its Apalachicola River to protect the mussels and maintain the seafood and recreational fishing industries in Apalachicola Bay.

Alabama, which shares the Chattahoochee with Georgia on part of its eastern border, is more interested in the Coosa River basin, which provides water for hydropower and recreational lakes, to float barges, and for drinking water and farm irrigation.

Lake Lanier set a new record low level in December. It's still more than 14 feet below its average level, lower than it has ever been in February at a time when it should be refilling before the late spring and summer drawdown.

"I believe there's a sincere effort being made," Kempthorne told the Associated Press on Thursday, enroute to a budget hearing on Capitol Hill. "I am encouraged, but I will keep pushing as well."

Kempthorne said he would only set a new deadline if the sides are close to an agreement.

George William Sherk, an expert in water law at the Colorado School of Mines who once represented the city of LaGrange and Troup County in tristate water matters, had predicted the three states would not be able to resolve their decades-old dispute so quickly, even with White House intervention.

Sherk said Georgia's negotiating leverage was probably diminished by a recent federal appellate decision last week that blocked metro Atlanta from using more water from Lanier.

"It wouldn't surprise me at all if Alabama and Florida are now asking for more than they were because Atlanta's weak," Sherk said. "I don't think the governors understand the complexity of the problem, nor do I think they understood that it's not a problem they could solve among themselves."