Perdue says the U-S government already is releasing too much water from Lake Allatoona. He says Alabama Governor Bob Riley's request for higher releases would drain Lake Allatoona and give Alabama little drought relief.
Perdue made the comments in a letter to U-S Army Secretary Pete Geren. Perdue says because of the drought, officials must be careful not to deplete the storage in Lake Allatoona.
Georgia and Alabama have waged a legal battle since 1990 over the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa River Basin that flows from northwest Georgia to Mobile Bay in Alabama. A federal judge in Birmingham, Alabama, is overseeing the case.
The two states along with Florida are also involved in a fight over the water in the Apalachicola- Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin - which includes Lake Lanier. Water in it flows from North Georgia to Apalachicola Bay in Florida.
The U-S Army Corps of Engineers operates Allatoona, which runs through Cobb, Bartow and Cherokee counties on the Etowah River.
Riley has said the Corps has ``shortchanged'' his state 18 billion gallons of water from Allatoona.
The Corps says Allatoona can hold about 120 billion gallons.
Perdue says the Corps has sent 8.4 billion gallons of water downstream to Alabama since June from Allatoona and Carters Lake, a smaller reservoir on the Coosawatee River.
The Corps of Engineers says the government has not illegally withheld water from Allatoona or any other lake reservoir.
A Corps spokesman said Wednesday a formal response would be sent to the governor ``fairly soon.''
``Suffice it to say we're aware of the concerns about the drought,'' Rob Holland, a spokesman for the Corps' office in Atlanta, told The Associated Press.
Just a year ago, the Corps was under attack from Georgia officials and others in the state for releasing too much water from Lake Lanier. That was blamed on a faulty gauge. As a result, the Corps mistakenly released about 22 billion gallons of water.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2007/7/87276