Excerpt from the Atlanta Regional Commission's website: For more than two decades, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida have been in various disputes concerning the use of two shared river basins — the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) and the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa (ACT). These river systems are used to meet multiple needs, including drinking water, power generation, agriculture, aquaculture, navigation, and recreation.
Surface waters from the ACF and ACT River Basins are critical for meeting metro Atlanta’s water supply needs because our access to groundwater is limited due to the granite geology underlying our region. While rainfall in metro Atlanta is generally abundant, river flows are not always sufficient to meet the area’s water supply needs. Therefore, we depend on our ability to store water in two reservoirs operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to provide safe and clean water supplies for our residents and businesses. The two major reservoirs we rely upon are Lake Lanier, located in the ACF Basin and Allatoona Lake, located in the ACT Basin.
The “Tri-State Water Wars” litigation began in 1990 when Alabama sued the Corps to prevent it from providing additional water to metro Atlanta from Lake Lanier and Allatoona Lake. It evolved and changed over time, with various parties filing lawsuits to challenge the Corps’ plans for managing the ACF and ACT Basins.
Excerpts from the ACF Stakeholders Inc. May 2015 "Sustainable Water Management Plan": The waters of the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint (ACF) Rivers and the Apalachicola Bay bind and divide both the geography of Alabama, Florida and Georgia and the users of the water.
The Basin is a water-rich region, yet one where attention to sustainable water resource management has become imperative. Although most needs are met in normal and wet years, the limits of the Basin’s capacity to support competing water needs are experienced under dry and drought conditions and more often in some locations and for some water uses. Improvements to the current conditions in the Basin are possible, however; and planning for dry and drought years is critical.
The economic well-being of the southern U.S. and the sustainability of the waters in the ACF Basin are intertwined. However, decades of conflict have set the stage for deeply held positions over the future of the region. The regulatory arena is in flux, and litigation casts a shadow of uncertainty. It is time to turn this around.
ACF Stakeholders Inc. (ACFS) urges the citizens of the Basin to focus on that which unites, rather than divides, us. We can and must act with common purpose to manage our shared water resources sustainably. Water efficiency and conservation measures, creative alternatives to water control operations, predictive drought management, investment in scientific knowledge for future decisions, and transboundary coordination and cooperation offer real ways to improve environmental, social and economic conditions in this Basin.
The mission and the challenge taken on by ACFS has been and is to change the operation and management of the ACF Basin to achieve equitable solutions among stakeholders that balance economic, ecological, and social values and viable solutions that ensure that the entire ACF Basin is a sustainable resource for current and future generations.
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