governors of Florida, Georgia and Alabama vow to end 17-year water war

Working with U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, the governors agreed to come up with a drought-response plan by Feb. 15 and to have the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service review it by March 15.

"It was brutally candid," said Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, describing nearly six hours of talks with Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist at the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee.
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Many residents of his community are tied to a seafood industry most famous for its harvest of bay oysters, which need freshwater from the Apalachicola River to survive.

The intense drought in Georgia has withered streams and tributaries that feed Lake Lanier, a massive reservoir northeast of Atlanta.

Water flowing through a hydroelectric plant at the Lake Lanier dam spills into the Chattahoochee River, which flows through metro Atlanta, where the utilities tap still more drinking water and dump treated sewage.

The river then meanders to southwest Georgia, where it skirts Alabama, joins the Flint River and becomes the Apalachicola River in Florida.


Restricted flow

For much of the past year, the U.S. Corps of Engineers has restricted flow from Lake Lanier so that about 3.2 billion gallons run down the Apalachicola each day.

Last month, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved a reduction to about 3 billion gallons daily.

Georgia officials want to continue the downward ratcheting of flow, keeping as much water as possible in Lanier.
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The Florida Coastal and Ocean Coalition of six major environmental organizations urged Crist last week to demand maximum protection for Apalachicola River flow during the spawning season from February through May.
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