GAINESVILLE – The Gainesville City Council is ready to enter into contractual agreement with the State of Georgia to provide for the future water needs of the city and its customers for the next three decades.
At present Gainesville water customers use approximately 18-million gallons of water from Lake Lanier per day on average and that number is expected to almost double by the year 2051. That increase is based upon growth projections for the city and its customer base.
Nearly four months ago, on January 20, 2021, officials with the State of Georgia executed an agreement with Lake Lanier’s operators, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), to secure water supply rights for the state, and to then negotiate sub-contracts with water supply providers, such as the City of Gainesville.
In response to that agreement a sub-contract between the state and the City of Gainesville securing for up to 32-million gallons per day for the city will be voted on by the Gainesville City Council Tuesday evening.
“This removes a level of uncertainty on our water supply and it represents a significant milestone for us,” Linda MacGregor, Gainesville Director of Water Services, said at Thursday morning’s city council work session.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Gainesville Mayor Danny Dunagan said. “There’s been some scary times throughout the years, I assure you.”
An annual cost to the city of $167,437 is part of the contract according to MacGregor. “That’s the cost of storage and ongoing repairs that the Corps has calculated.” MacGregor said the contract negotiated between the State of Georgia and USACE totals $71-million and Gainesville’s portion of that is roughly $5.25-million, which will be spread out over the thirty-year life of the agreement.
MacGregor said the State of Alabama, as expected, is protesting the recent agreement between Georgia and the Corps.
In 1990 Alabama filed suit over water-withdrawals made by Georgia from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River system, beginning the decades-long Water Wars. “Alabama has amended their appeal to include the storage agreement between the Corps and the state that was signed in January,” she said, “…and its working its way through the legal process.”
