Plan B in the tri-state water dispute

ATLANTA - What if the governors of Alabama, Florida and Georgia can't reach a water sharing agreement by a deadline imposed by a federal judge? Then Georgia falls back to Plan B, which was discussed at a meeting in Atlanta Thursday.

Plan B is to parlay for some more time, says John Brock, who co-chairs the Governor's Water Contingency Task Force.

Maybe to 2015 or 2020, Brock says, which would get Georgia along the way to expanding existing reservoirs and building new ones, which is Plan A for right now.

But Brock tells the Georgia News Network the trouble is, that will mean bigger and more reservoirs, and they can't be built before the federal deadline for finding a way for Atlanta to continue using water in Lake Lanier. That deadline is 2012.

The Task Force says doing without water from Lanier would impact the gross domestic product of metro Atlanta by 10 percent per year or $25-$30 billion.