Water wars - southeast style

Maybe not a big deal right now with rainfall totals near or even above normal for the year. But long term, this gets interesting very quickly:

A federal judge on Friday ruled against Georgia in the state's water dispute with Alabama and Florida, deciding that Atlanta-area municipalities must stop withdrawing water from a massive federal reservoir within three years unless they can get approval from Congress.

. . .

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said the ruling would have a tremendous impact on his state's economic future.

"Atlanta has based its growth on the idea that it could take whatever water it wanted whenever it wanted it, and that the downstream states would simply have to make do with less," Riley said. "Following the Court's ruling today, this massive illegal water grab will be coming to an end."

Even better? Georgia claimed it wouldn;t be using any Lake Lanier water back in the 50s, when the dam was first built, to avoid having to chip in for the construction costs.

Damn guvamint projects.