The states had their shot at finding a solution to the water crisis that grips Georgia, Alabama and Florida. Now the federal government will tell them what to do.

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Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced Saturday that the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies will come up with their own water-sharing solution for the three states.

"Regrettably, it will necessarily be a solution being directed to the states instead of ... solution coming from the states," he wrote in a letter to Gov. Sonny Perdue and his counterparts in Alabama and Florida.

Bert Brantley, a spokesman for Perdue, said in a phone interview Saturday that federal intervention was not the governor's preferred outcome, and that Perdue wanted to "get to the finish line" with the other states on their own.

"We certainly would have preferred to reach an agreement with our neighboring states," Brantley said. "We were hopeful that we could actually get to an agreement."

Florida and Alabama did not have much to say on Saturday.

Erin Isaac, a spokeswoman for Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, declined to comment on the federal government's move, saying that she had not seen Kempthorne's letter, nor had she talked to Crist about it.

Todd Stacy, a spokesman for Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, also declined to comment.

Kempthorne may have taken a page out of his predecessor's playbook.

In 2005, former Interior Secretary Gale Norton sent a similar letter to seven states bickering over the Colorado River, said George William Sherk, a water law expert at the Colorado School of Mines.

The letter prompted the states to return to the negotiating table and hash out an agreement, Sherk said.

"The states had that 'Come to Jesus' moment," he said.

A Denver attorney involved in that water dispute, Jim Lochhead, speculated that Kempthorne's letter is just that: a motivation letter in disguise.

"I would imagine the letter was sent as a way to facilitate and give some motivation to all three parties to sit down and work through a common agreement," Lochhead said.

The governors wanted to come to a resolution by Feb. 15, then extended their deadline by two weeks, to Saturday. But it became apparent in a series of meetings that they were going nowhere fast.

"Over the last two weeks, [Perdue's] optimism started to wane," Brantley said. "We didn't seem to be making the progress that we hoped for."

Kempthorne's letter did have a bright side. He said some have observed more progress in the past three months than in the 18 years that the states have feuding over the region's river basins.

"We have achieved some, but not all, of our objectives," Kempthorne said.

That progress, Brantley said, puts the federal government in a good position to find the right solutn.

"They've heard all the sides. The know all the issues," Brantley said. "They're well-prepared to made good, sound decisions."

The three states will still be closely involved in the federal decision-making process, he said.

Asked where the three states have reached agreement, Brantley declined to go into specifics, saying the meetings were confidential, he said in a follow-up e-mail to his phone interview.

Since 1990, Georgia has been fighting in court with Alabama and Florida over Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee River, and just Alabama over Lake Allatoona and the Coosa River.

Lanier provides drinking water to more than 3 million metro Atlantans; Allatoona is the source for about 800,000. To Alabama and Florida, the lakes are backstops during droughts: the reserves where additional water can make up for what rain doesn't provide.

The 18-year impasse has stymied not only the states' long-term water planning, but also the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has been unable to update its operations plans for Lanier and Allatoona for decades.

In another development Saturday, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources announced that no severe drought declaration is necessary this year for the lower Flint River Basin in southwest Georgia.

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report.