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Name:
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waterph
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Subject:
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Judge rules against Atlanta
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Date:
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7/18/2009 8:53:31 AM
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There is one sentence in this article which is very interesting - "Florida and Alabama argued the lake was initially built for hydropower and that providing water to Georgia was not an authorized use". In the case of Smith Lake, what if property owners were to bring suit against APC for water level control?Would the courts have ruled in a similar manner? IE, Smith Lake was also built for hydropower and not as a cooling water source for Gorgas.
ATLANTA (AP) - Metro Atlanta and its 4 million residents have almost no rights to a massive federal reservoir and must stop taking water from it within three years unless Congress authorizes continued withdrawals, a federal judge ruled Friday.
The devastating ruling against Georgia says nearly all the state's withdrawals are illegal because the reservoir, Lake Lanier, wasn't built for water supply. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson acknowledged use of the lake can't stop immediately because it is metro Atlanta's main water supply but said the state needs permission from Congress.
"The Court recognizes that this is a draconian result," Magnuson wrote. "It is, however, the only result that recognizes how far the operation of the (lake) has strayed from the original authorization."
Florida, Georgia and Alabama have been fighting over water for two decades, particularly the operation of federal dams that hold water back in reservoirs and can dramatically affect flows downstream.
The fast-growing Atlanta region relies on Lanier and other reservoirs for drinking water. But Florida and Alabama depend on healthy river flows for commercial fisheries, farms, industrial users and municipalities. The Army Corps of Engineers also is required to release adequate flows to ensure habitats for species protected by the Endangered Species Act.
Friday's ruling came in a case being heard in Jacksonville, Fla., in which Florida and Alabama challenged a 2003 water-sharing agreement between Georgia and the Army Corps that would have allowed Georgia to take far more water from Lanier over the coming decades. The deal would have allowed Georgia's withdrawals to jump from about 13 percent of the lake's capacity to about 22 percent.
Florida and Alabama argued the lake was initially built for hydropower and that providing water to Georgia was not an authorized use.
Magnuson cited a lengthy historical record of government documents and testimony before Congress to support his ruling that serving Atlanta's water needs was only an incidental purpose for the lake. He noted that Georgia officials argued as much in the 1950s to avoid having to help pay for building it.
Magnuson ordered the lake's water usage to be kept at current levels for the next three years. Without congressional action by then, he said, the lake's operations would return to 1970s levels, with only the cities of Gainesville and Buford allowed to take water. Other municipalities that get withdrawals just downstream from the reservoir would also see their water supplies drastically reduced.
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