Is Atlanta entitled to Lanier’s supply?

After almost two decades, the hard-fought, tri-state water wars litigation that has engulfed Georgia, Alabama and Florida has arrived at the central battlefield.

In a Jacksonville courtroom today, a federal judge will consider the question: Is metro Atlanta entitled to rely on Lake Lanier as its primary source of drinking water?

Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson, appointed to oversee a number of related water lawsuits, will preside over the much-anticipated hearing. Last year, the St. Paul, Minn., judge said the answer to the question over Lake Lanier’s water may make other disagreements in the high-stakes case “obsolete.”

The water-wars case began in 1990 when Alabama sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop the corps from giving metro Atlanta more water from Lake Lanier.

Formed by Buford Dam in the mid-1950s, the lake is the source of water for about 3 million people in North Georgia.

Alabama and Florida contend Lake Lanier was formed for only three purposes: controlling floods, allowing barges to float downstream and generating power.

Further, the two states say, accommodating metro Atlanta’s needs with water stored at Lake Lanier violates the Water Supply Act of 1958.

A ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington backs up this argument, Alabama and Florida said in a joint motion filed this year. In that decision, the appeals court threw out a 2003 settlement under which the corps agreed to increase withdrawals from Lake Lanier from about 13 percent of capacity to an estimated 22 percent to satisfy Georgia’s future water needs.

This amounted to a “major operational change” at the reservoir and, under the Water Supply Act, requires congressional approval, the appeals court said.

Georgia has countered that the Water Supply Act only requires congressional approval by those unauthorized to tap into Lake Lanier.

The metro area is an authorized user, established through passage of the River and Harbor Act of 1946, a bill that authorized Buford Dam’s construction, the state says.

Georgia’s legal brief cites a number of documents and testimony, provided to Congress before passage of the act, that indicate one of Lake Lanier’s purposes was to supply water for the metro area.

On May 3, 1946, Col. P.A. Feringa gave such testimony on the corps’ behalf before the House Rivers and Harbors Committee. Buford Dam would be a “multiple purpose project,” providing navigation, flood control, power and “water supply for the city of Atlanta,” he said.