Georgia wins tri-state water ruling

Atlanta Business Chronicle: 

A federal appeals court Tuesday sided with Georgia in its 20-year-old water war with Alabama and Florida.

In a 95-page ruling, the Atlanta-based U.S. 11th District Court of Appeals overturned a lower court decision handed down nearly two years ago that had threatened to cut off Lake Lanier as metro Atlanta’s primary water source just one year from now.

“The injunction is gone,” said Patricia Barmeyer, a lawyer with King & Spalding LLP who represented Georgia in the case. “There is no more 2012 deadline.”

The appellate court held that U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson was wrong when he declared in July 2009 that water supply was not an authorized purpose of the federally managed reservoir when Buford Dam was built during the 1950s.

Tuesday’s decision remanded the tri-state water dispute back to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, giving the agency one year to make a final determination of its authority to operate the dam.

Magnuson had given the three states three years to work out a water allocation agreement. Absent a settlement, under his order, water withdrawals from Lake Lanier were to be reduced in July 2012 to levels not seen since the mid-1970s.

Georgia has long argued that the reservoir was intended as a water supply.

“This means that the lake will continue to be available to meet Georgia’s needs,” said Brian Robinson, spokesman for Gov. Nathan Deal. “At first glance, it appears that the state of Georgia has won a great victory.”

Lawyers for Florida and Alabama had sought to limit the quantity of water Georgia could retain above Buford Dam, arguing that the two states needed an adequate flow of water down the Chattahoochee River system to protect endangered aquatic species in Florida and for power production purposes in Alabama.

Barmeyer said Tuesday’s ruling means the Corps will now go back and review a water supply request Georgia submitted more than a decade ago. The agency rejected the application at the time, citing its position that water supply was not among the reservoir’s intended purposes.

“[Now], water supply is on a par with hydropower, flood control and navigation,” she said.