A US District Court judge last week dismissed a legal challenge as to how much water Georgia gets to keep from the Chattahoochee River

A US District Court judge last week dismissed a legal challenge as to how much water Georgia gets to keep from the Chattahoochee River.

The Ruling dismissed claims from the state of Alabama and multiple environmental groups, including the Apalachicola Riverkeeper, that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plan allows Georgia to hold back too much water in reservoirs along the upper Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin.

The plan details the operations of five reservoirs, including Lake Lanier, through 2050 and gives Georgia virtually all the water it needs for the next 30 years from the ACF basin, which provides drinking water to more than 4 million people in metro Atlanta and irrigates many southwest Georgia farms.

The parties argued the corps didn’t properly balance the needs of downstream Alabama and Florida for uses like drinking water, wildlife conservation, navigation and recreation.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash Thrash concluded that the corps weighed the needs of all three states and that it didn’t need to revisit its plans.

The decision can be appealed to the Eleventh Circuit Court.

Georgia Ackerman, executive director of the Apalachicola Riverkeeper, called the decision extremely disappointing, especially for those who have been harmed by the Army Corps of Engineers’ mismanagement of the water of Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint rivers basin.

She added that the Corps’ new water management plan ignores extensive testimony by scientific agencies and experts during the update process. The plan will further starve the Apalachicola ecosystem of vital freshwater flows, especially during the critical breeding, spawning and flowering seasons for many species.

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