Tri-State Water Wars (AL, GA, FL)
Water Wars History
The Army Corps of Engineers built Buford Dam on the Chattahoochee River almost 50 years ago, creating Lake Lanier. The authorized purpose of the lake was to provide flood control, hydropower and navigation. As time progressed, the booming population of metro Atlanta began to rely on Lake Lanier for its water supply and the Corps began issuing interim contracts to municipal water-supply providers without any evaluation under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In 1989, the Corps recommended that some of the lake water be reallocated for water supply in the Atlanta region.
In response, Alabama sued the Corps the next year, claiming that reallocating the water would favor Georgia's interests and that the Corps had violated NEPA by ignoring the environmental impacts of reallocating water on the downstream states. Alabama also claimed that the Corps breached its duty to operate Lake Lanier and other federal reservoirs for the benefit of all downstream users in the ACF and ACT basins. Florida sought to intervene on the side of Alabama, while Georgia and metro-Atlanta municipalities moved to intervene on the side of the Corps.
The Alabama lawsuit was put on hold so that the three states and the Corps could negotiate a resolution. The four parties agreed to conduct a comprehensive study of all of the water issues affecting the ACF and ACT basins to determine how to fairly allocate the water resources. The study recommended that interstate compacts be developed to apportion the water resources. The compacts were officially ratified by Congress in 1997, after they passed all three state legislatures, and created a structure that would allow the states to work together to determine the best method for managing the resources, while litigation remained on hold.
Unfortunately, the states could not reach an agreement, and, after multiple deadline extensions, the compacts expired without resolution in 2003 (ACF) and 2004 (ACT), and the three states are back in court.
