Atlanta<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhile this specific lawsuit is only six years old. the so-called tri-state \u201cwater wars\u201d between Georgia, Alabama, and Florida date back to 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis agreement is a win-win for our states, with neither side sacrificing what is important to them,\u201d Gov. Brian Kemp said Tuesday. \u201cThe Chattahoochee River is the lifeblood of Southwest Georgia, and this proposal would give citizens and businesses certainty about the flow of water they need for business and leisure alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust as significant, adoption of this proposal would end the current issues related to water supply for metro Atlanta at Lake Lanier, which is crucial to the future of our state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAlabama and Georgia have a lot in common,\u201d Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey added. \u201cBut we have spent a lot of time \u2013 and a lot of money on attorney fees \u2013 fighting in court over water. This proposal is a big deal for Alabama as the Corps has never before set minimum water-flow objectives in the parts of the Chattahoochee that affect us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt would provide Alabama with long-term assurances that, in times of drought, our citizens will be protected, and our stakeholders will know how much water is coming their way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The agreement announced Tuesday is the most significant since September of last year, when representatives of water supply systems in Gwinnett, Forsyth and Hall counties finalized an agreement with the state of Georgia guaranteeing them water from Lake Lanier through 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Georgia in a lawsuit brought by Florida over water allocation from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) Basin. Steps water planners in the Atlanta region have taken during the last two decades to reduce water consumption figured into that ruling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs leaders in water stewardship, we are gratified the parties have come together on an agreement that both protects metro Atlanta\u2019s water supply and provides the downstream flows Alabama requested,\u201d said Katherine Zitsch, senior water policy advisor at the Atlanta Regional Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tuesday\u2019s agreement is not the end of water wars litigation. Alabama is continuing to pursue a legal challenge to the Corps\u2019 2021 decision to meet metro Atlanta\u2019s water-supply needs from Allatoona Lake, part of the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa (ACT) River Basin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ATLANTA \u2013 The states of Georgia and Alabama have reached an agreement expected to end a long-running legal dispute over water allocation from the Chattahoochee River Basin. Under the agreement, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will consider a first-of-its-kind proposal to operate its dams and reservoirs to achieve minimum water-flow objectives at Columbus, Ga., [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":163624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9308,8782,9509],"class_list":["post-163528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alabama","tag-georgia","tag-water-wars","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=163528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=163528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=163528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=163528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}