ATLANTA — Metro Atlanta is poised to lose up to 280 million gallons of water a day — costing businesses up to $39 billion a year — if the city is cut off from its main water source, Lake Lanier, Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) reported November 23.
This news was delivered to Georgia’s water task force during a November 23 meeting at Gov. Sonny Perdue’s mansion. The group, which met for the second time, is working to develop an alternative plan to using the lake.
Georgia has been embroiled in a decades-long water-rights fight with the neighboring states of Alabama and Florida. In July Georgia was told by a federal judge that metro Atlanta and the rest of the state had three years to find a new source of drinking water or to gain congressional approval after the fact for use of the lake as a drinking water supply. The judge said use of the lake should be returned to the original uses for which it was created: controlling floods, allowing downstream navigation and generating power, as WaterTech Online® reported.
If Lake Lanier's use for drinking water discontinued, GPB reported, the hardest-hit Georgia counties would be Gwinnett, Forsyth and Hall.
Georgia’s water task force also discussed conservation measures such as graywater recycling, and finding additional source water via groundwater or seawater desalination.
Georgia is continuing its appeal of the federal judge’s decision about the use of Lake Lanier for drinking water. The state has hired Seth Waxman, a former US solicitor general, to lead its appeal, GPB reported November 21. The state will pay Waxman $855 an hour.
To read the full GPB November 23 report, click here.
For related information, click here.
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