Articles

Preliminary Water Pact Is Signed

Charles Seabrook, AJC Staff
July 23, 2003

The governors of Georgia, Florida and Alabama signed a preliminary agreement Tuesday spelling out how they will share waters of the Chattahoochee and two other rivers flowing across their borders.

It is the biggest and most important step yet toward settling the bitter water war that began in June 1990 and has been in negotiations since February 1998.

The "memorandum of understanding" comes a day after the governors met in Columbus and vowed to resolve remaining differences in allocating waters of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system.

"When finalized, this agreement will be viewed as a historic one that will positively impact millions of Georgians, Alabamians and Floridians as well as having a widespread and positive impact on the environment," said Gov. Sonny Perdue.

For metro Atlanta and North Georgia, the water-sharing agreements will assure enough water -- even in droughts -- to fuel growth through 2030, when the region's population is expected to be 6 million.

Objections expected
The governors say they expect to sign a final agreement within a month. At their Monday meeting, they extended the deadline to Aug. 31 for signing a final pact.

After the final version is signed, the public will have 60 days to comment. Then the agreement will be scrutinized for up to 255 days by more than 10 federal agencies to check compliance with federal laws, such as the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. The agreement is bound to meet with objections.

The Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, for instance, is concerned that rivers and streams will not have enough water to support fish and other aquatic life.

Homeowners bordering Lake Lanier worry the lake would be drawn down too low during droughts, leaving docks dry.

But another preliminary water pact between Georgia and Alabama has moved ahead with few obstacles. The states agreed in April to end a squabble on the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa river basin.

The Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint dispute has been much harder to resolve because it involves three states and more competing water demands.

Conditions of agreement
For Alabama, the agreement will assure adequate supplies for its growth. For Florida, it promises enough freshwater for oysters and other marine life in Apalachicola Bay.

The "principles" that the governors pledged to on Tuesday include:

• A guaranteed minimum flow of 5,000 cubic feet per second (a cubic foot is 7.4 gallons) in the Apalachicola River at the Florida state line during droughts. The Apalachicola, which flows across the Florida Panhandle, is formed by the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers at Lake Seminole near the Florida line.
• An average annual flow of 750 cubic feet per second will be maintained in the Chattahoochee at its confluence with Peachtree Creek in Atlanta to assure adequate water supplies downstream.
• No Chattahoochee water downstream of Whitesburg (about 30 miles southwest of downtown Atlanta) can be pumped or transferred back upstream for use by metro Atlanta.
• No new transfers of water from the Flint River basin will be allowed to go to the Chattahoochee basin.
• The Army Corps of Engineers will be authorized to provide up to 705 million gallons of water a day for metro Atlanta from Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee, about a third more than the region has used in recent years.
• At least 58 percent of the water that metro Atlanta withdraws from the Chattahoochee for drinking and industrial use will be returned to the river basin as treated wastewater.

The agreement will be in effect through 2040, but the states must start new rounds of talks by 2035 to make changes. Any state that wants to leave the pact must do so by 2038.

Reprinted with permission from The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution. Further reproduction, retransmission or distribution of these materials without the prior written consent of The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution, and any copyright holder identified in the material's copyright notice, is prohibited.