None — Georgia won the latest round in court, but from the expanding muddy red banks of Lake Lanier it looks and feels a lot like metro Atlanta is still losing the water wars.
The lake is down9 feet and dropping at a rate of about a foot a week, giving rise to memories of the great drought of 2007-2009 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers drained 20 feet out of Lanier -- and some say sucked the life out of the local economy.
The fear is the lake will continue to sink with a dry winter in the forecast and next summer could be as disastrous as 2008 when Lanier was down 15 feet and tourism was off by about 880,000 visitors and recreation revenue was down $90.2 million.
“They’ve been dropping it like crazy for the last 15 days and it’s got people scared,” said Don Hunt, 54, a boat mechanic working at Holiday Marina Tuesday afternoon. “I know Atlanta needs the water, but they can’t be letting it out that fast.”
The 38,000-acre lake about 40 miles north of downtown Atlanta is a recreational site that draws about 7.5 million visitors a year and metro area’s biggest source of drinking water at the hart of the tri-state water wars between Georgia, Alabama, and Florida.
Earlier this month, Georgia won the latest round in court when the Atlanta-based U.S. 11th District Court of Appeals denied hearing another appeal from Alabama and Florida to overturn a June ruling by the circuit court that said water supply is an authorized purpose of the lake. The case will now probably go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
WSBTV
