Can Congress Allocate Atlanta's Water In Three Years?

Yesterday was a big day in the Southeast Water wars arena. Nothing like a typical late Friday ruling to light up everyone's blackberries.

A federal judge ruled the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been illegally reallocating water from Lake Lanier to meet metro Atlanta’s needs. Georgia basically has three years to seek congressional approval or water withdrawals from the lake are cut and only Gainesville and Buford will be allowed to withdraw water.

Is this Draconian? Read on from the ruling...

"The Court recognizes that this is a draconian result. It is, however, the only result that recognizes how far the operation of the Buford project has strayed from the original authorization. As the Court stated at the hearing, the slow pace at which the Corps operates has only served to further complicate and provoke this already complicated and inflammatory case.

It is beyond comprehension that the current operating manual for the Buford Dam is more than 50 years old. Certainly, the pendency of this litigation has made the Corps’s completion of plans and manuals more difficult. However, the states and municipalities that rely on the ACF basin for water cannot determine how the operation of the project will affect their interests if they do not understand how the Corps intends to operate the project.

The uncertainty created by the Corps’s alarmingly slow pace only adds to the frustration of all parties involved in this litigation. The Court encourages the Corps to complete its plans for the ACF basin as quickly as possible, to allow the parties and Congress to analyze more effectively the future of this vital resource. The blame for the current situation cannot be placed solely on the Corps’s shoulders,however. Too often, state, local, and even national government actors do not consider the long-term consequences of their decisions.

Local governments allow unchecked growthbecause it increases tax revenue, but these same governments do not sufficiently plan for the resources such unchecked growth will require. Nor do individual citizens consider frequently enough their consumption of our scarce resources, absent a crisis situation such as that experienced in the ACF basin in the last few years.

The problems faced in the ACF basin will continue to be repeated throughout this country, as the population grows and more undeveloped land is developed. Only by cooperating, planning, and conserving can we avoid the situations that gave rise to this litigation."

-Paul A. Magnuson United States District Court Judge

So, can congress allocate Atlanta's Water in three years? I guess we will find out.
District Court Order Regarding Atlanta on July 17, 2009