The governors of Florida, Georgia, and Alabama have finally scheduled a meeting to restart negotiations into sharing water from the Apalachicola/Chattahoochee/Flint (AFC) River system.
The expected but long overdue meeting is set for 12:30PM CST, on December 15 in Montgomery, Alabama at the Wynfield Plantation in the Conservatory.
The last time the Tri-State Governor’s held meetings to discuss the AFC were in late 2007 and early 2008 and even then, they left the meetings without reaching an agreement.
Since that time, U.S. District Court Judge Paul A. Magnuson issued a ruling that should have sent the State of Georgia flying back to the negotiation table.
Instead, Georgia’s Governor conducted a media campaign declaring that he would “fight to the death” to retain Georgia’s right to withdraw water from Lake Lanier.
However, Judge Magnuson ruling set a timeline of three years for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fix the problem before he would issue a final ruling ordering Lake Lanier’s water levels back to the baseline levels of the mid seventies. Which in turn would drastically reduce the amount of water that growing Atlanta could withdraw from the lake.
The judge ruled that the Corps had abused its discretion when they continued to allow Georgia to withdraw more and more water from Lake Lanier for municipal purposes, without first seeking approval from Congress.
The expected but long overdue meeting is set for 12:30PM CST, on December 15 in Montgomery, Alabama at the Wynfield Plantation in the Conservatory.
The last time the Tri-State Governor’s held meetings to discuss the AFC were in late 2007 and early 2008 and even then, they left the meetings without reaching an agreement.
Since that time, U.S. District Court Judge Paul A. Magnuson issued a ruling that should have sent the State of Georgia flying back to the negotiation table.
Instead, Georgia’s Governor conducted a media campaign declaring that he would “fight to the death” to retain Georgia’s right to withdraw water from Lake Lanier.
However, Judge Magnuson ruling set a timeline of three years for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fix the problem before he would issue a final ruling ordering Lake Lanier’s water levels back to the baseline levels of the mid seventies. Which in turn would drastically reduce the amount of water that growing Atlanta could withdraw from the lake.
The judge ruled that the Corps had abused its discretion when they continued to allow Georgia to withdraw more and more water from Lake Lanier for municipal purposes, without first seeking approval from Congress.
No comments:
Post a Comment