WASHINGTON -- Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue will meet with his Florida and Alabama counterparts here today to hash out a decades-old dispute over water rights inflamed by the current drought.

"We've got an exceptional drought that is threatening our water supply, and we're taking all that data and information to D.C. to share with everybody so that everybody understands where we are and the situation that we're facing," said Bert Brantley, spokesman for Gov. Perdue. "Our hope is that we get fruitful and candid discussion."

The three states have been at odds over how much water the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been releasing out of North Georgia's Lake Lanier into Alabama and Florida.

Georgia has been pressuring the corps to reduce the outflows, as environmental officials have estimated metro Atlanta, which draws its drinking water from Lake Lanier, may have as little as two months' supply left.

But the corps has said it is following Endangered Species Act requirements in releasing water to help protect endangered mussels and sturgeon downstream in Florida. Corps officials also have said a nuclear power plant in Alabama relies on the released water to cool its towers.

The Lake Lanier outflows affect the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa river basins in Alabama and the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basins in Florida.

Neither Alabama Gov. Bob Riley nor Florida Gov. Charlie Crist could be reached for comment.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who will be part of the congressional delegation from the three states meeting with the governors, said the summit will be a chance for meaningful dialogue in a dispute that has grown increasingly heated over recent weeks.

"I think it's time to go back and see if we can re-engage," Sen. Sessions said. "The drought has exacerbated tensions, but it also has the potential to let us all know we need an agreement. Getting all the facts agreed upon is a precondition to a sound settlement."

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne and James Connaughton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, also will attend the meeting.

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., said he is hopeful a compromise can be brokered, though he warned the dispute could go to the Supreme Court.

"To simplify it, (the governors) ought to get back to the table and negotiate in the best interests of their states, or this needs to go to the United States Supreme Court to come up with a compact," he said. "I don't think you want to (leave the decision) to the courts until you've exhausted every opportunity for the three to negotiate."

Georgia sued the Army Corps of Engineers earlier this month to reduce Lake Lanier outflows by 60 percent, accusing the federal government of placing a higher priority on mussels and sturgeon than people. A federal judge has scheduled a Nov. 19 hearing in Jacksonville, Fla.

That prompted Gov. Riley to accuse Georgia officials last week of waiting until September to impose "meaningful" restrictions on water use in the Atlanta area, while Birmingham Water Works in Alabama's largest metro area did so in June.

"Atlanta can't spend all summer during a drought watering their lawns and flowers and then expect someone else to bail them out," Gov. Riley said.

Gov. Crist wrote President Bush to say "the unrealistic demands of one region" would "further compromise the downstream communities."

Sen. Isakson said the meeting could be the springboard for a long-term water management plan involving the three states, which is crucial with the Southeast rapidly growing.

"Praying for rain is a help, but this is a crisis that could happen again," Sen. Isakson said. "This is a wonderful platform for us to build a foundation for a regional plan on the management of our water that keeps us from ever getting in this shape again."

U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., said he hopes that plan includes uniform guidelines for each state on water use. Georgia officials have complained that Alabama has not instituted statewide water restrictions to lower consumption rates.

Gov. Perdue last week ordered utilities and water systems in the state to reduce consumption by 10 percent.

"I think it's going to require that everybody be operating under the same kind of control mechanisms," Rep. Deal said. "It really becomes an unfair situation where upstream people are under more severe constraints than downstream people, and yet the downstream people continue to ask for more water."