Overflow crowd at Cumming lake meeting; Barge traffic at center of argument

CUMMING - Georgia Congressman Bob Barr says eliminating barge traffic on the lower Chattahoochee River, which could help stabilize the level of Lake Lanier, is not politically possible right now, even though, he says, much of that activity cannot be justified.

"What we really need to do is do away with (downstream navigation) as an authorized purpose for these federal reservoirs," Barr said. "But, until we have the votes...to do that, we need to rely on working as closely as we can with the Corps, so they don't authorize the navigation windows."

Barr's comments, at a meeting in Cumming Monday night, followed a fact-finding visit to Lake Lanier earlier in the day.

Barr understands how political any legislation aimed at deauthorizing barge navigation downriver can be. The Bainbridge-Decatur County Development Authority says it depends on lake levels and has adopted a resolution opposing any efforts to deauthorize barge navigation on the river.

The Bainbridge-Decatur County Development Authority sites an economic impact survey conducted in 1998 by Booz, Allen & Hamilton and Georgia Southern University for the Georgia Ports Authority which indicates the river ports generate 237 jobs in Columbus and Bainbridge and another 311 in the region--a total of some 550 jobs--with a payroll of more than $15 million annually. Revenues from the two ports amount to more than $40 million per year, generating more than $1 million in state and local taxes.

Water releases from Lanier are periodically needed to raise the lower channel for navigation.

The District Engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers said overdevelopment around Lanier and the other lakes his office oversees is his top concern.

"That's a concern from the Corps' perspective, that's a concern from the other federal agencies, it's a concern from most of the state agencies, that we start overdeveloping the lakeshores," said Colonel Robert Keyser, who heads the Mobile, Alabama, Corps office.

The meeting attracted a standing-room-only crowd.