The Army Corps of Engineers would reduce water releases from metro Atlanta's primary reservoir by 16 percent to help ease drought pressures in north Georgia while still providing freshwater to sustain endangered species in Florida's Apalachicola Bay under a plan announced today by the Bush administration.
The proposal, which must win approval from the Fish and Wildlife Service, emerged as a temporary solution to the ongoing battles between Georgia, Alabama and Florida over flows in the drought-afflicted Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin.
The plan was announced in Washington after a meeting between top administration officials and the governors of Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
The corps is expected to submit a revised plan for the reservoir, Lake Lanier, to the Fish and Wildlife Service by midnight. The plan would cut daily water releases from 5,000 cubic feet per second to 4,200 feet, according to the corps' chief, Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp.
The three Republican governors -- Alabama's Bob Riley, Florida's Charlie Crist and Georgia's Sonny Perdue agreed to the temporary reduction in water flows and announced plans to meet again to hash out a permanent drought water-sharing agreement by February.
Georgia has demanded that the government keep more water in the federal reservoir to meet Atlanta's needs during the drought. But the corps is required to maintain current flows in order to maintain habitat for several endangered species as well as supply several power plants and paper mills downstream.
Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne said that FWS officials would review the corps' revised Interim Operating Plan in 14 days, instead of the usual 125 days. Kempthorne declined to speculate on what would happen if FWS does not approve the plan, saying "we won't deal with hypotheticals."
Van Antwerp said reductions in water releases would occur in several stages, each lasting approximately two to three weeks. That would allow federal officials the opportunity to monitor the health of mussels and fish the Apalachicola River.
The three governors said they will meet in December in Florida to draft language that will be added to the corps' operating plan, which would specifically address water flows in drought conditions. 'Tense' meeting
Perdue and Riley discussed the crisis earlier today at a closed meeting with Georgia Republican Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, hosted by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).
An aide described the meeting as "tense" but declined to provide details. In an interview, Isakson said that the meeting was constructive but expressed doubts about the chances of a speedy permanent agreement.
"You're not going to sit down at a one-hour meeting and come to a lot of agreement on a 20-year-old conflict that has a lot of litigation," Isakson said. "It looks like we have a climate where we can find solutions, and I hope we do."
Shelby also declined to discuss the details of the meeting, saying only he was "hopeful the states can move toward an interim agreement about water releases soon before the situation grows even more serious in Alabama."
But the Alabama Republican was far more blunt in his assessment of the situation in a letter sent to President Bush yesterday with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). The lawmakers urged Bush not to slash water releases from Lake Lanier.
"To grant the request of Governor Perdue to suspend all water releases out of Lake Lanier beyond those needed for Atlanta would ignore, and in fact exacerbate, the problems of those living downstream," the lawmakers wrote. "While the state of Georgia has framed its argument by making this an issue of people versus mussels and sturgeons, that is simply a fallacy."
Sessions and Shelby argued that Georgia does not own the water in Lake Lanier and blamed the state for not providing better management for its scarce resources.
"Clearly, Georgia wants to reallocate the water because it has not done a good job in anticipating and responding to long-festering water supply problems in the state," they wrote.