Georgia group urges conservation as water crisis looms

Published 7:48 pm Friday, December 11, 2009

By ERRIN HAINES

Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA — Georgia must aggressively conserve water, build and expand reservoirs, reduce outdoor watering and upgrade plumbing systems — but even those actions might not be enough to head off a looming 2012 crisis over Atlanta’s water supply, members of a state water task force say.

The Governor’s Water Contingency Task Force met for third time Friday seeking an alternative to relying on Lake Lanier as the main water source for metro Atlanta. Georgia has been embroiled in a decades-long fight with Alabama and Florida over water rights, and a federal judge has given the three states and Congress until 2012 to reach an agreement.

“Conservation plays a very critical role in this going forward,” said John Brock, co-chair of the task force and chairman and chief executive officer of Coca-Cola Enterprises. “It’s the only thing we can do that will have an impact by 2012. But we do not see the way to meet the 2012 deadline.”

If the states fail to find a solution, Atlanta will see its water supply from Lake Lanier reduced dramatically. In July, a federal judge ruled that Georgia has little right to withdraw water from the massive reservoir.

Georgia is appealing the judge’s ruling as part of a multi-pronged strategy to address the state’s water crisis.

On Tuesday, the governors of Georgia, Florida and Alabama are expected to meet in a renewed effort to resolve the long-standing feud. The meeting in Montgomery, Ala., will be the first face-to-face water talks between governors Sonny Perdue of Georgia, Charlie Crist of Florida and Bob Riley of Alabama in two years.

The task force was created to look at whether Georgia could go it alone if both the tri-state negotiations and the legal appeal fail. Its recommendations — which present scenarios to be implemented by 2015 or 2020 — will be considered by the General Assembly during the upcoming legislative session.

Task force leaders said Lake Lanier is still the most economically and environmentally logical choice for metro Atlanta’s water supply. Without it, they said, meeting the region’s water needs would be expensive — and a cost likely to be passed on to consumers.

While Gov. Sonny Perdue said reauthorizing use of the lake was still his main priority, he added that the state must adopt a “culture of conservation,” which would be a major part of the suggested strategy for the state whether the judge’s decision is reversed or not.

“We’re all in this together is the message,” Perdue said. “It’s not a word of sacrifice … but a word of honor.”

According to the task force, losing Lanier as source for drinking water could mean an annual loss of more than $26 billion for businesses. Metro Atlanta could lose up to 280 million gallons of water a day without the lake and businesses could lose up to an estimated $39 billion dollars a year.

Conservation measures previously discussed include recycling so-called gray water left over from washing; tapping more extensively into ground water, and desalinizing sea water from Georgia’s coast.

Most of the options to quench metro Atlanta’s thirst without Lanier are costly and none would provide enough water for the city to meet the federal judge’s 2012 deadline.