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Atlanta's main water access placed on 2012 deadline
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Recent district court rulings restrict Atlanta's access to Lake Lanier
Photo credit: www.obeo.com
Georgia, and the city of Atlanta in particular, could be facing dry days ahead if leaders from two other neighboring states can’t negotiate an agreement within the next three years.
According to the Associated Press, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia remain in a deadlock over the fate of Lake Lanier, but could be forced to the bargaining table, leaving Georgia politicians in a tight situation – either succumb to strict demands by neighboring states, such as tight water efficiency standards, costly construction and infrastructure projects, and round-the-clock checkpoints, or leave Georgia out to dry by cutting water supplies to levels they were decades ago.
District Court Judge Paul A. Magnuson ruled July 17 that Georgia was required to cease all activity and water withdrawals from the lake immediately, as the water reservoir is protected for alternative uses of power, and does not exist as an unrestricted supply for the city. Usage of Lake Lanier, Atlanta’s primary water source to over 5.5 million as of 2009, must undergo permission by Congress if the city wants access to it.
Larry Sanders, Interim Director of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory University Law School, stated that the tri-state predicament is unusual, and that Judge Magnuson’s district court ruling is based on issues of legality, not on who needs or wants the water most.
“The case is framed by the city of Atlanta as who deserves or owns the water,” Sanders said Wednesday. “The question is based more on legal aspects, like how the federal Army Corps of Engineers manages its reservoir, not about the city’s desperate need.”
According to Judge Magnuson’s ruling, Atlanta’s primary water supply would be severely restricted by 2012, reaching levels that existed during the 1990s, unless Georgia agrees to Florida and Alabama’s strict demands. Otherwise, Georgia lawmakers and leaders alike will either face a defiant Congress or unsympathetic courts. The alternative, as some local leaders have voiced, would be a water conservation campaign of epic proportions.
Sanders reiterated the prevalence of history in this case, citing similar situations, and standing precedents that have affected its outcome thus far.
“This is a very complicated case that follows strings of arguments from years ago,” he said. “It first began as a case between Alabama and the Corps of Engineers, who has been the defendant in most cases that followed. Over the years, Florida began siding with Alabama and Georgia joined on the side of the Corps of Engineers. Power customers eventually sued the Corps too, and years later with the drought, more suits against the Corps emerged.”
Following the rainstorm of lawsuits, Sanders cited the use of a “multi-district litigation panel” which reserves the right to consolidate and assign their outcomes to a judge based on certain factors like neutrality, experience, and prior knowledge of similar cases.
“The panel originally assigned a judge from Alabama to the case, which was seen as unfair, but Magnuson was eventually chosen because he’s from Minnesota, a neutral player in all of this, and most of all, because he has a history of ruling on water litigation.”
Bert Brantley, a spokesman for Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, commented on the issue in August 2008, when lawsuits continued rolling in against the illegal use of Lake Lanier for citywide consumption. Judge Magnuson at the time had agreed to look at the entire picture, including arguments from both sides of the negotiation table.
“The idea was how much of Lake Lanier should be set aside for water, and our argument was that we could point to many places in the federal code and case law that show our ability to use this as a primary water source,” Brantley commented to the Gainesville Times last year. “Past practice and the federal government has allowed this to happen for years. We believe that it’s a correct use of Lake Lanier to be [utilized] for water supply.”
From a historical and geographical perspective, both Alabama and Florida rely on downstream water flow from Lake Lanier for wildlife preserves, farm and agricultural use, and industrial incorporation. Rare animal species and other inhabitants also need water from the lake, as the Endangered Species Act entitles them to.
Sanders highlights the fact that the three states have been arguing for over twenty years about Lake Lanier and the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system, which is entitled to water, and the means with which each state can access its respective water supply.
“Congress came up with some of these rules and restriction in the 1930s and 1940s, which set the historical record as far as this case is concerned,” Sanders said. “The lawmakers at the time had developed a method of authorizing and funding certain aspects of the lake for alternative means of energy, not water supply.”
Sanders eventually noted that he approved of Judge Magnuson’s decision.
“I think he’s totally right from a legal analyst’s perspective,” he said. “We’re dealing with a firm deadline now, which I think will finally set the impetus toward a stark reality for these policymakers.”
With environmental activists and local residents becoming unnerved by the future of Lake Lanier and Atlanta’s water supply, come political pressures and electorally charged decision-making. Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue’s term expires in 2011, leaving a fresh, incoming politician with the burdens of both conservation and negotiation.
“What I believe will eventually happen, from a political side of the issue, is that Governor Perdue will leave this in the hands of the incoming politician,” Sanders offered. “I read in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently that the Governor said that he would ‘fight to the death’,” Sanders said with a cautious tone. “That doesn’t look likely to happen. It seems like Georgia really needs to take a different approach, which doesn’t include handing the baton to the next guy in line.”
Governor Perdue has been adamant about the topic, citing that he plans to appeal the decision as far as possible. If he remains true to his word, the case will reach the Court of Appeals, and could possibly reach the Supreme Court in the future. However, if resolved in Congress, it would require a three-state charter between Georgia, Florida, and Alabama.
“Even if [Senators] Chambliss and Isakson reach an agreeable decision, it would require other states to buy into the idea,” Sanders added.
However, there are several issues at hand concerning the looming 2012 water supply deadline, primarily concerning metropolitan growth and planning in Atlanta, recent drought interferences in water consumption, and environmental litigation.
According to the City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management, the city currently follows a “non-drought schedule” which allows locals to use water “three days per week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays”. The site also explains that, “even numbered and unnumbered addresses can water on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays”. Watering is restricted on Fridays completely. Other stipulations include restricted watering between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., when the site claims that “evaporation can create water loss without a corresponding benefit to landscaping”.
The Department of Watershed and Management recently linked its website to a comprehensive water conservation campaign, entitled “Water, Use It Wisely” at wateruseitwisely.com. The website features over 100 ways to conserve water on a daily basis, whether it be domestically, industrially, or community-wide. The tips touch on a number of topics, such as washing the dishes, watering the garden, running the household washer and dryer, and using sprinklers for large areas of land.
The “Water, Use It Wisely” campaign website also features links to U.S. federal conservation organizations related to renewable energy sources, regional conservation links, standards for everything from pools, landscaping, water meters, fixtures and appliances, and water reuse. Other links regarding water usage are provided, including Australia’s water conservation methods, and water saving groups in Delaware, Colorado, and even Africa. The Environmental Protection Agency is also linked, along with the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Geological Survey, Navy Water Conservation, and Department of Interior Buildings and Facilities Energy Management & Water Conservation Plan. Lastly, the website offers tips and helpful advice relating to such topics as irrigation, domestic and industrial water conservation, and landscaping, from conservation organization and activists, like the World Water Council and American Water Resources Association.
With regard to water consumption, Sanders also took note of the fact that Georgia, and Atlanta in particular, had been receiving a “free ride” of sorts for years, and that the unlimited supply would finally be put on hold.
“Atlanta’s train of thought for decades now has been ‘Why build a reservoir when we have our own right at our fingertips?” Sanders said. “Since the Corps of Engineers was already tapping into the water, why not just use what comes downstream for ourselves, without any regard for the legality of such use?”
Specifically after the 1970s, it became clear that the Corps of Engineers had to change its operations. Simply put, Atlanta needed more water. There had been a boom in the city’s population, and demand exceeded supply. With Judge Magnuson’s recent ruling, the water levels would drastically reduce, and some speculate they could reach pre-1990s level if action isn’t taken – obviously a time of less water consumption and a thinner number of metropolitan residents.
Perhaps one of the faults associated with the city’s water woes lies with Atlanta urban planners and the Corps of Engineers, for not projecting the city’s population and out of control water usage.
Sanders pondered whether or not planners and developers should have known better, or the alternative situation -- was Atlanta blissfully blind to its illegal activities in Lake Lanier?
“Clearly, people who were visionaries in the 1930s understood how valuable Lake Lanier would be in the future, and I really believe the city of Atlanta deliberately maneuvered this simply for their benefit, without any intent to pay for the water they were using,” Sanders said. “Other states simply do not get off that easily.”
Ultimately though, Judge Magnuson’s decision will be stretched to the breaking point. Atlanta residents will continue drinking water, watering their lawns, and taking showers, legally or not.
“One way or another, the toilets will have to flush in Atlanta,” Sanders said with a laugh. “It just remains to be seen how the larger legal picture will be resolved.”
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