Salazar sees hope on water issue

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, in Georgia to discuss the longstanding water war between Georgia, Alabama and Florida, waged a tri-state water war of his own out West, he said.

As a former attorney general for Colorado, Salazar helped hash out a water-allocation plan between Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, which had been feuding since 1984. The combatants spent $60 million on lawyers and engineers —- efforts that “did not yield a single drop of water,” Salazar said.

But the western states’ success in finding a solution makes Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue optimistic about doing the same here, Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said. “The governor sees wide opportunity for us to make some real progress,” Brantley said.

Georgia, Florida and Alabama have been fighting over who controls the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River —- an argument tied to how metro Atlanta manages its water.

At a court hearing in Jacksonville, Fla., earlier this month, Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson criticized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for taking decades to determine how to allocate water from Lake Lanier. The lake is the source of drinking water for more than 3 million people living in North Georgia and metro Atlanta. Magnuson predicted it would take some time before he issues a ruling.

While in Washington a couple of months ago, Perdue approached Salazar about the water war. Salazar spent the day in Georgia on Wednesday, touring Lake Lanier and other places while discussing water issues. He said he would discuss the tri-state water issue with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, whom he was scheduled to visit Thursday.