ATLANTA (AP) – A judge has ruled that a federal agency doesn’t have to revise its plans for how it operates dams along the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers, another win for Georgia in its struggles with Florida and Alabama over the water that flows into the Apalachicola River.
Environmental groups and the state of Alabama had sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2017, saying the agency’s plans held too much water in reservoirs in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint basin and that it should release more for hydropower and wildlife.
It’s the second win for Georgia, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Florida’s effort this spring to cap how much water Georgia could use.
Lake Lanier northeast of Atlanta and the Chattahoochee River supply drinking water to much of metro Atlanta.
“For metro Atlanta, what was at stake was really our ability to withdraw water from Lake Lanier,” Katherine Zitsch, manager of natural resources at the Atlanta Regional Commission, told WABE-FM.