Water Wars between Georgia, Alabama and Florida finally dry up

No blood was shed, but it will go down as one of the longer conflicts in memory.

Last week, Alabama finally raised a white flag after nearly four decades of legal battles with Georgia in one front of what came to be known as the “Tri-State Water Wars,” which included Florida.

The Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta granted Alabama’s request to dismiss its appeal that challenged water use in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin.

“For the first time since 1989, there is no litigation between the states in this basin,” said Anna Roach, the executive director and CEO of the Atlanta Regional Commission, a party in the case.

“This agreement heralds a new era of cooperation that will benefit both states and all stakeholders,” Roach said in her statement after the Feb. 19 court order by a three-judge panel.

The cessation of legal hostilities between the two states, the commission, The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other parties resolves the decades-long dispute over the Corps’ management of the basin’s water.

The compromise will maintain metro Atlanta’s supply from Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee River while giving Alabama what it sought, the commission said.

Although the war with Alabama is over, some skirmishes continue.

Florida environmentalists appealed a 2021 federal court ruling affirming the Corps’ 2017 management plan for water from the lake and the Chattahoochee River below the Buford Dam.

And Alabama still has a pending federal court challenge in Washington, D.C. against a 2021 Corps water plan.