Brian Vanderhoff's North Fulton Real Estate Blog

Lake Lanier, already low due to lack of rain, will get even lower, say officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The lake, which provides drinking water to much of the Atlanta area, is currently at 1063.9 feet above sea level, about 7 feet below full pool.

For the next few weeks, engineers will be opening the gates at Buford Dam to send more water downstream, which will further drop the lake level.

"Due to the declining inflows and increased lake evaporation, augmentation from the lakes will be required to maintain minimum flows in the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers unless weather conditions change," said the Corps' E. Patrick Robbins in a press release.

“We expect, if there are no changes in weather patterns, to see a decline in reservoir levels at Lake Lanier, West Point Lake and Lake Walter F. George over the next [few] weeks,” said Lisa Coghlan, Deputy Public Affairs Officer. “There just isn’t enough inflow into the system to maintain required downstream flow levels,” said Robbins.

Robbins warned swimmers and boaters to be extra cautious when using the lake as lower water levels bring potential hazards closer to the surface.

Some boat ramps are closed or partially closed due to low water -- Bald Ridge Marine right lane, Lanier Point, Long Hollow left lane, and River Forks.

Labels: Lake Lanier, lake lanier water, water levels

After years of extreme drought, Lake Lanier is finally back to full pool. Tuesday, the Army Corps of Engineers announced it will lower the lake level in anticipation of more rain.

Jim Farmer has been fishing Lake Lanier for more than a decade. Farmer said that during his time on the lake Tuesday, it hit him that the lake has never looked better.

"The leaves are starting to turn, the lake is full, it's just a nice time to be out here," said Farmer.

It was only a year ago that Lake Lanier looked completely different, a sad symbol of a drought-stricken state.

Now levels at the lake have reached full pool levels of 1071.52 again. The Army Corps of Engineers announced it needs to take action and lower the lake.

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Brian and Jennifer Vanderhoff
North Fulton County REALTORS
Vanderhoff Real Estate
(770) 888-9269
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Milton, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
North Fulton County, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
Forsyth, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
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Labels: Lake Lanier, lake lanier water, lanier water levels

It is the news that people living in North Georgia have been waiting years to hear ... Lake Lanier is full once more.

After several years of not reaching 1071 feet above sea level, or "full pool", Lake Lanier finally reached that level at 9 a.m on Wednesday October 14th.

The lake and its surrounding communities have struggled not only over the last few years, but for around a dozen years. In the early part of this decade the lake rarely acheived full pool. The situation reached a nadir in 2007 and 2008 as a brutal drought gripped North Georgia and the lake flirted with record lows. 12 months ago the lake was 18 feet below its current level which meant that most boat ramps were shut and businesses in the area struggled to attract visitors.

There are still serious issues surrounding the lake's future, including the "Tri-State Water Wars" argument that involved Georgia, Alabama and Florida fighting over the right to use water from Lanier. Today however, the people of North Georgia can celebrate. Their lake is back.
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Brian and Jennifer Vanderhoff
North Fulton County REALTORS
Vanderhoff Real Estate
(770) 888-9269
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Milton, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
North Fulton County, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
Forsyth, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
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Labels: boaters, boating, camp twim lakes, Cumming, full pool, Lake Lanier, lake lanier water, lanier water levels

If you live around Lake Lanier, you know that the last few years have been a rollercoaster ride. However, the recent weeks have been more eventful than ever. Here's a recap:


September 19th: Several days of torrential rain cause Lake Lanier to jump two feet in one weekend.
September 23rd: Over 20 inches of rain recorded in parts of North Georgia.

October 1st: The Corps of Engineers has to fight criticism of its water releases during the flooding.
Today: Lake Lanier stands 1.69 feet below full pool with more rain to come.  We're in sight of the lake's first full pool in over four years.

Lake Lanier Fishing Report



Nothing much has changed on the stripers over the last couple of weeks, except we are starting to see some bigger fish up shallower. We've had boats out on trips everyday the weather has permitted and the fishing has been good most days. This morning inspite of the strong winds and front passing, the stripers bit very well on our boats and they were up shallower. Yesterday, they were deeper and out over the channel.




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Brian and Jennifer Vanderhoff
North Fulton County REALTORS
Vanderhoff Real Estate
(770) 888-9269
---
Milton, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
North Fulton County, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
Forsyth, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
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Labels: Forsyth County, Lake Lanier, lake lanier water

After building the Lake Lanier reservoir in 1960, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers helped transform it into something for which it was never intended: the Atlanta region’s main source of drinking water.

Court records show the Corps repeatedly permitted local governments to withdraw water from the federal reservoir, even though Congress didn’t authorize its construction for that purpose. Meanwhile, the region’s population — and its demand for water — grew rapidly to the point where more than 3 million people depend on drinking water from the lake today.

But the fate of the region’s water supply now is in question after a federal judge issued a stinging ruling in the tri-state water rights war this month that says the Corps’ actions were illegal. The judge is giving Congress three years to decide how the reservoir should be used before tightening the spigot at the lake to levels from the mid-1970s, when Atlanta was a fraction of its size.

Critics say the Corps helped push the region into this crisis by giving into local political pressure for drinking water as the area developed and generated more tax revenues. One of those critics compared the Corps and the Atlanta region’s relationship to that of a pusher and an addict.

“Who is responsible, the Corps for facilitating demand or the local water providers for their ever-increasing demands?” said George W. Sherk, who wrote about the reservoir’s legislative history when he was a visiting associate professor at Georgia State University and who now teachers water law at the Colorado School of Mines. “The Corps’ failure to understand that there were limitations on its authority was a factor in creating the problem we have today.”

Brig. Gen. Todd Semonite, who took over command of the Corps’ South Atlantic Division on May 1, was out of town training and not available for comment last week, said his spokesman.

“The Corps acted in good faith,” said Corps spokesman Rob Holland. “Our goal has always been to be even-handed and — insofar as we could — accommodate what people wanted and needed within the law.”

In his ruling in the nearly 20-year-old legal dispute among Georgia, Alabama and Florida, U.S. District Court Judge Paul A. Magnuson said the Corps should have known better. And he highlighted the Corps’ inconsistent actions.

The Corps, for example, rejected a water supply request from Gwinnett County during the Buford Dam’s construction in 1955, saying the withdrawals could affect the reservoir’s original purposes as authorized by Congress: power generation, flood-control and navigation.

But it entered into contracts in the 1970s and 1980s, allowing Gwinnett County and Cumming to withdraw tens of millions of gallons of water from the lake. The Corps also entered into a contract with the Atlanta Regional Commission in the 1980s, the judge wrote, to release more downstream for drinking water customers in Cobb, DeKalb, and Fulton counties and Atlanta.

Then in 2002 — after the tri-state legal battle began — the Corps responded to another Georgia water-supply request, saying it could not grant the request without congressional approval, the judge wrote.

Also, the Corps wrote an operating manual for the reservoir about 50 years ago that does not include water supply among its “major uses,” the judge said.

Erwin Topper, who served as the operations manager for the reservoir and Buford Dam when the contracts were approved in the 1980s, said those decisions were made at a higher level than him.

“Water supply contracts are not negotiated at the local level but — with input from local managers — are finalized and negotiated in the Mobile District Office of the Corps of Engineers,” said Topper, who worked at the reservoir from 1983 to 2004.

Lisa Coghlan, a spokeswoman for the Mobile district office, said the Corps acted believing it had authority under the federal Water Supply Act to permit the withdrawals from the lake.

Magnuson said the Corps doesn’t deserve all the blame for region’s dilemma.

“Too often, state, local and even national government actors do not consider the long-term consequences of their decisions,” Magnuson wrote in his 96-page ruling. “Local governments allow unchecked growth because it increases tax revenue, but these same governments do not sufficiently plan for the resources such unchecked growth will require.”

From the time the reservoir was completed in 1960 to last year, the population in the five counties that depend at least in part on Lake Lanier or the Chattahoochee River for drinking water grew by 2.2 million, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission.

Labels: drinking water, Lake Lanier, lake lanier water

U.S. court sides with Alabama, Florida on use of Lake Lanier water

A federal appeals court has denied Georgia's request to reconsider a recent ruling that denied metro Atlanta more water from Lake Lanier.

A three-judge panel of U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington denied the request without comment in a ruling issued Thursday. The court's earlier ruling invalidated a 2003 settlement among the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates Lanier, federal hydropower customers, who buy electricity produced at the dam, Georgia, and metro Atlanta governments.

As part of the settlement, cities and counties that depend on Lanier for drinking water agreed to pay the Corps $2.5 million a year to offset the costs of operating the dam in exchange for laying claim to 65 percent more water from the lake for up to 20 years. Alabama and Florida strongly opposed the agreement.

In February, the appeals court ruled the amount of water metro Atlanta wanted — about 14 percent of Lanier's water — constituted a major operational change that would require congressional approval.

At the time, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said the court foiled Georgia's "massive water grab." Georgia had argued it has a right to the water.

Labels: Florida, Georgia, lake lanier water, water ruling