MONTGOMERY - One of the top federal officials dispatched to Alabama and Georgia Friday by President Bush said he hoped officials in coming weeks can agree on how to deal with falling water levels in drought-plagued reservoirs.

Connaughton said, "We want to see if we can make sure we have a common agreement on interim steps that we can take to assure drinking water, to assure continued power availability and reliability, to assure other uses ... and where necessary make balances in our decisions about how we operate."

He said Riley, Perdue, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and members of Congress from all three states plan to meet Thursday in Washington to talk about the drought and water use and hear information, some of which he said may counter long-held views. Connaughton said he and Kempthorne plan to attend, too.

Connaughton said he hoped state and federal officials can work out an interim plan for operating storage reservoirs in Alabama, Florida and Georgia after "a few more weeks of data development."

"A lot of times a crisis will cause you to come together and do things," Riley said, referring to the historic drought.

Senior officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers, including Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, the corps commander, also attended Friday's meetings with Perdue and Riley.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., joined the Montgomery meeting. "I believe we've got three good governors and I believe we can make this happen," he said.

Perdue in recent weeks has publicly worried about the future availability of drinking water for the Atlanta area. Perdue wants the Corps of Engineers to release less water into the Chattahoochee River from Lake Lanier in north Georgia. The lake is the main source of drinking water for more than 4 million people in the Atlanta area.