Alabama wins water war with Georgia

By By Bob Martin, The Alabama Scene
In February 2008, a federal appeals court ruled that an undisclosed settlement agreement between Georgia and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which would have reallocated a large portion of water from Lake Lanier’s federal reservoir to feed the growing thirst of Atlanta’s bulging population, was illegal under federal law.
Georgia then petitioned the U. S. Supreme Court, asking that the ruling by the appeals court be overturned. The Supreme Court denied the petition.
In another ruling this past weekend a United States District Court said it was illegal for the Corps of Engineers, which operates Lake Lanier, to continue to draw water from the lake to meet Atlanta’s needs.
The U.S. Corps constructed Buford Dam and created Lake Lanier 50 years ago. The Lake’s authorized purpose was to provide flood control, hydropower and navigation. Over time, the booming population of metro Atlanta began to rely on Lake Lanier for much of its water supply, and the Corps acquiesced.
However, the court said Lanier was not designed to be Atlanta’s water supply, and the Corps may not use it that way unless Congress authorizes it to do so. If Congress fails to pass a water-sharing bill in three years, the court said it would order Atlanta’s withdrawals cut to 1970s levels, a measure that the court acknowledged would be draconian.
The ruling is the latest step in a nearly 20-year saga that began with a lawsuit filed by Alabama in 1990 charging that the Corps of Engineers was illegally withdrawing water from Lanier and punishing states downstream to support Atlanta. The suit, later joined by Florida, has been delayed a number of times to give the governors of the states a chance to negotiate a water-sharing agreement.
Attorney General Troy King says Alabama’s position in the long-running litigation was ‘totally vindicated’ by the ruling in the U.S. District Court in Jacksonville, Fla., issued by U. S. District Judge Paul John Magnuson. “After 19 years, Alabama has finally achieved a total legal victory in this case, one that has regrettably not been able to be resolved at the negotiating table by the states’ governors. With this legal victory for Alabama, perhaps a renewed spirit of cooperation can be achieved,” King said.
The governors of Florida and Alabama say they are willing to return to the negotiating table, but Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has stated that Georgia will appeal the decision. “I will use this opportunity not only to appeal the judge’s decision but, most importantly, to urge Congress to address the realities of modern reservoir usage,” Perdue said.
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions says Congress should not intervene in this process until the three states have reached a negotiated settlement, and one of Georgia’s U. S. Senators, Saxby Chambliss, agrees
Gov. Bob Riley issued a statement, saying “Now that these critical legal issues have been resolved, I hope this sets the stage for renewed negotiations between the three states so that a fair and equitable agreement to share the water can be reached.”
Gubernatorial candidates galore
Six of the eight announced candidates for governor showed up at the Alabama Press Association’s meeting in Orange Beach last Friday evening. Both Democrats, Congressman Artur Davis and Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks, were there along with Republican hopefuls Bradley Byrne, the lawyer from Montrose, State Treasurer Kay Ivey, Tim James, the son of former Gov. Fob James, and Bill Johnson, the head of the Alabama Department of Economic Affairs (ADECA). Two in the GOP field, State Rep. Robert Bentley of Tuscaloosa and former Judge Roy Moore, did not attend.
I will have to admit that for the most part, we have a pretty impressive group of candidates. I had the opportunity to reminisce with James about his dad, whom I got to know back during his first term as governor and unsuccessfully approached him about investing in a business proposition on the coast one afternoon at his Orange Beach Marina; with Byrne about his tenure as chancellor of the state’s two-year colleges…he still remembers questions I asked him on public TV; with Ivey, whom I have known for years, about old acquaintances in Montgomery; with Davis about his remarkable relationship with the President; and with Sparks about his trade initiative with Cuba, which has provided state farmers millions of dollars in revenue for products grown right here on Alabama soil.
Bob Martin is editor and publisher of The Montgomery Independent. E-mail him at: bob@montgomeryindependent.com