Though a long way from the Dust Bowl Droughts of 1924-1927, and again from 1930-1935, which contributed to national food scarcity and further complicated the Great Depression, Georgia is in a state of continuing drought, which looks increasingly like the drought of 2007. Record-breaking droughts, of days without rainfall, as well as depleted water tables, placed some communities in water rationing from 2006-2008.
More than 70 percent of the surface of this world is water, and nearly 96 percent of that water is in the world's oceans, excluding water frozen in glaciers and the two polar ice caps, only about 1.2 percent of the world's water is considered fresh and potable, without treatment, purification or further distillation.
Most of Georgia's current water supplies come from freshwater lakes, rivers, and underground aquifers. Water conservation is up and consumption per household is down. However, agriculture and certain industrial uses (data centers) continue to require massive water supplies. Most of Georgia's rivers and lakes, both natural and man-made, provide drinking water, agricultural irrigation for crops, and an ample supply for residential and commercial uses.
The drought of 2007 taught lasting lessons to many Georgia communities, who improved their water planning and storage including new multi-billion gallon reservoirs in former quarries, for the cities of Atlanta and Athens. Water Wars between Georgia, Alabama, and Florida (which share many rivers, linked aquifers, and water recharge areas) began during the 1980s, with fighting over the division and consumption of available water supplies, initially over the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee Flint (ACF) River Basin and later the Alabama-Coosa Tallapoosa (ACT) Basin.
The ACT originates in North Georgia's Etowah River, flowing south through the heart of Alabama and emptying into the Gulf of Mexico near Mobile. Along the way, the ACT fills many major reservoirs, including Lake Allatoona in Bartow, Cherokee, and Cobb Counties. The ACF has its headwaters near Helen, Georgia, flowing south to the Buford Dam which created Lake Lanier, serving as a primary water supply for DeKalb, Gwinnett, and Fulton Counties as well as the City of Atlanta, then south before connecting with the Flint River, which has its start underneath Hartsfield International Airport, and terminates into Apalachicola Bay along the Florida panhandle.
During 2021, our U.S. Supreme Court gave Georgia its most significant court win to date (in the ACF Basin), ruling against Florida's lawsuit claiming that Georgia water use of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers during the drought of 2012 had killed the iconic oyster industry in the Apalachicola Bay. That drought certainly didn't help, but several recent hurricanes in the Gulf and reshaping the cut that forms the bay behind St. George Island also had much to do with the devastation of the area's oyster economy.
In 2015, following those two more recent droughts, the Army Corps of Engineers revised its Master Manual for managing the river systems and water levels in the reservoirs along the ACT Basin. The state of Alabama and Alabama Power took issue with the operational plan, suing the Corps, and the state of Georgia joined the Army Corps as a co-defendant. The Alabama team argued that the Corps reserved too much water in Lake Allatoona, and the decreased flows south resulted in poor water quality, greater water insecurity in times of drought, and the potential compromise of hydropower generation dams downstream. Alabama further claimed the Corps' plan violated the Clean Water Act and potentially caused serious downstream environmental impacts.
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan was not buying those arguments. In a sprawling 299-page decision, he rejected the plaintiffs' claims and found that the Army Corps had followed federal law in crafting its ACT Basin Master Manual plans. Judge Sullivan concluded that the Corps has wide latitude to adjust river operations.
"The Court agrees with the Defendants that the Army Corps crafted modest incremental changes to the ACT Master Manual, that appropriately considered and balanced the various applicable specific and general project purposes, and therefore in no way has exceeded its authority," wrote Sullivan in his lengthy opinion.
While not yet breaking out champagne, or even sparkling water, the office of Governor Brian Kemp termed this decision as "representing the greatest achievement in securing water supply for Metro Atlanta since Georgia's win before the U.S. Supreme Court (2021), and that this decision brings Georgia a "step closer to ending the decades-long Water Wars." At least for now, Georgia's case and water lawyers are appearing nearly as strong across the southeast as our Georgia Bulldogs. Go LAWGS!
