A resolution in the decades-long fights over water between Georgia and Florida is probably still a long way off. Even a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in the case it’s hearing in the water wars, which the states argued Monday morning for the second time, is likely months away.
But one thing was made clear in Monday’s arguments: Florida, in its request to the court to limit Georgia’s water use, says that it is not coming after municipal water users in its case against Georgia.
That would include Atlanta.
Earlier in the case filed in 2013, Florida had criticized both metro Atlanta’s water use from the Chattahoochee River and southwest Georgia farmers’ water use from the Flint River. On Monday, Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked Florida’s attorney, Gregory Garre, whether that was still the case.
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Sprinklers irrigate land in this University of Georgia photo. The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments this week that involve how much water South Georgia farmers can remove from the Flint River basin for irrigation, as well as how much the Atlanta area can draw from the Chattahoochee River for drinking water.
University of Georgia
By Dave Williams | Capitol Beat News Service Feb 21, 2021
Feb 21, 2021
Sprinklers irrigate land in this University of Georgia photo. The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments this week that involve how much water South Georgia farmers can remove from the Flint River basin for irrigation, as well as how much the Atlanta area can draw from the Chattahoochee River for drinking water.
Georgia signs contract to pull disputed water from lake
January 25, 2021 GMT
GAINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) Georgia has signed an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that for the first time formally ratifies the rights of two suburban Atlanta counties to use Lake Lanier for drinking water.
The lake northeast of Atlanta, formed by damming the Chattahoochee River, has been used for drinking water for decades. But federal litigation among Georgia, Alabama and Florida over who gets to use water in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system had questioned that use.
The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear more arguments in that case on Feb. 22. But the agreements signed Wednesday date back to a previous Supreme Court ruling in 2012 that ruled that water supply was an authorized purpose of Lake Lanier. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers changed its rules in 2017 to let the lake be used for drinking water.
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