Judge rules – again – against Georgia

In a ruling this week, the federal judge in the “tri-state water wars” essentially told Georgia to quit filing legal appeals and get serious about settling its disputes over water allocation in Lake Lanier and other waters shared by Alabama and Florida.  The state had filed an appeal of the judge’s order from July, in which he determined the Corps of Engineers had been illegally withdrawing water from the lake to meet demands of fast-sprawling metro Atlanta, and gave Georgia and the two other states three years to settle their differences.  

SELC has long advocated for comprehensive, sustainable water-use planning in Georgia and Alabama to protect the ecological health of the two major river basins at issue in the “water wars,” and to help avoid the need for major water projects such as reservoirs and interbasin transfers that wreak havoc on river systems.