Our region is undergoing a major drought. Our reservoirs are down many feet and are holding about a three month supply of water. Many have dried up.

The Governor of Georgia and many elected officials are pointing at the Army Corp of Engineers as the problem since they are releasing many gallons of water daily from Lake Lanier, Forsyth county's and the North Atlanta region's main supply of drinking water. There are few other water sources. Of those that exist all except one are very small compared to Lake Lanier and are already dry.

The main reservoir upstream from Atlanta on the Chattahoochee River, Lake Lanier, is run by the Army Corp of Engineers. Forsyth county covers the western shoreline of it. Lake Lanier is a federal reservoir built for many other purposes. And the river is the water supply for many cities and towns downstream all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Lake Lanier's mission is defined by Federal law. It was established in the 1950's. A major function of Lake Lanier is flood control. During times of heavy rainfall, runoff waters are stored in Lake Lanier to help prevent flooding downstream of Buford Dam. Later, after the heavy rains have subsided, floodwaters stored in the lake can be released through the Powerhouse in a more controlled manner. This keeps the river flow consistant in times of low rainfall for the communities downstream that rely on it.

Why are we running out of water? The top people from the governor, the Atlanta Regional Metro Planning Commission and various county commissioners claim the growth has no impact on water resources. Other real estate developers want to pipe the Tennessee River into the Chattahoochee River basin depriving the folks downstream in the Tennessee River Basin from their water. This kind of talk is absurd and does not solve probelms.

Forsyth county is consistantly in the top ten growing counties in the nation. Yet our infrastructure is not growing and much of it is at capacity, like air, water and traffic. And yet the building goes on as if nothing was happening. There are 20,000 or so houses in the pipeline approved for building in Forsyth county alone. The county has had a moratorium on new residential applications in place all year while studying the county infrastructure.

The problems are apparent. The air is at alert levels and people are advised not to breath it many days each summer. Our water supply was already having problems in times of normal rainfall and summer watering restrictions are common place every year. People sit in traffic for hours weekly wasting precious gas and polluting the air. Not to mention the loss of quality of life.

Our problems are magnified daily by the pace and magnitude of development. Elected officials are having a hard time saying no to environmentally unfriendly development and requiring less density. The developers are proposing high density and other similar developments to maximize their investment as they should. It is the Land Use map that is being ignored in many cases. Instead of developing a property within the Land Use plan to maximize the investment many developers want to ignore government's right to regulate development.

County Land Use Planning is done by state law for every county to determine a map for proper sustainable development suitable for the area. It is routinely changed at a developer's request. Only recently have politicians been willing to tell a few proposals to come back when their proposal matches the Land Use plan. This is further aggrivated by private property rights vs. government land planning. Most laws are made to solve this issue. For example when a dveloper's plan is going to have negative impact on the community it is placed in it clearly should be denied. The politicians have this right but are continiously threatened by lawsuits from developers for interferring with their private property rights.

So don't blame the Corp of Engineers for the water problem. They have planned properly and are managing the river for all the folks, including the ones downstream. No, we are not talking about the muscles in Florida. We are talking about real living people like the ones in Forsyth county. People that live downstream and deserve water from the Chattahoochee as much as people upstream.

Article written by several member of Rivers Alive for the Creek Keeper Network.