Ga. lawmakers seek to block move by Fla., Ala. to limit access to lake

CUMMING — With Georgia’s victories in the tri-state water wars aside, and even its legal bills from that entanglement now history, the Gainesville-based Lake Lanier Association now has its eyes on a water reauthorization bill moving through Congress.

“We won all the lawsuits, without a doubt,” said LLA member Wilton Rooks, giving a report during the group’s annual membership meeting Wednesday night. “The battleground is now in Congress.”

Rooks was referring to the Water Resources Development Act, which proposes to authorize a number of water projects nationally, including the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project.

In the U.S. Senate’s approval of the bill in May, Georgia dodged a maneuver by Florida and Alabama — the other litigants in a long-standing water-sharing battle — that could have curbed Georgia’s water withdrawals from Lake Lanier and Lake Allatoona.

The legislation now goes to the House of Representatives.

“It’s still a little bit bothersome, but it’s not as detrimental as it was,” said Rooks, also a member of the ACF Stakeholders, a group representing varied interests in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, which includes Lake Lanier at the northern end.

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