Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeepers

Is there an upside to proposed reservoir?

Are you concerned about water levels in Lake Lanier or having enough water in the Chattahoochee above the lake for recreation on the river and at state parks? If so, take a very hard look at the proposed 850-acre impoundment in Hall County known as Glades Reservoir.

With a $350 million price tag, it’s not the bargain that local boosters, developers and high-paid consultants seem to think it is. Nor is it good for local streams – 18 miles of which would be destroyed if this boondoggle is built. Importantly, 1.2 billion gallons of water currently flowing into Lanier every year would evaporate from Glades Reservoir, which means that much less water will flow into Lanier in the future.

To address the tremendous controversy surrounding any proposal to dam a tributary to Lanier, the focus of a decades-long interstate dispute, the US Army Corps of Engineers wisely decided Hall County must prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) before the federal agency could make a permit decision. This means that the county must evaluate the direct, indirect, and cumulative effects of the proposed Glades Reservoir on water quantity and quality, aquatic resources, and socioeconomics. The county also must identify a reasonable range of alternatives and adequate mitigation to address unavoidable adverse impacts.

The Federal Register recently published a 60-day notice requesting public input into the scope of the EIS. As the notice explains, Flat Creek would be dammed immediately upstream of Lanier and its reservoir filled by pumping more than 100 million gallons of water per day directly from the Chattahoochee above Belton Bridge. This volume of water is more than the city of Atlanta takes from a much larger section of the Chattahoochee downstream.

Water from Glades Reservoir would then get piped either to Cedar Creek Reservoir – the same reservoir at the center of a prolonged legal dispute between the city of Gainesville and the county over access to the stored water – or back to the original withdrawal site at the river, as needed during low flows. In our assessment, this amounts to no more than a costly shell game.

A review of Glades’ history over the past decade reveals its origin as an amenity lake for high-priced subdivisions. A single landowner with title to the land, and favorable zoning secured years ago, stands to benefit from development surrounding the reservoir.

Some government leaders are touting Glades Reservoir as an integral part of the solution to Georgia’s water crisis. In the past decade, the Chattahoochee has suffered from recurrent extreme droughts, making it ground zero for the Tri-state Water War over allocation of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint basin. These events have fueled Georgia's misguided strategy to circumvent federal control over the Chattahoochee by building dams on its tributaries.

Along with the 180-plus member organizations of the Georgia Water Coalition, Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper is concerned that proponents of Glades and other new reservoirs have largely ignored faster, less expensive water supply solutions, including maximizing the use of existing reservoirs, such as Lanier, and more aggressive water conservation and efficiency measures, like fixing leaking pipes and retrofitting old plumbing. All of these measures can be achieved much sooner than Glades Reservoir and at a fraction of its cost.

Bottom line: Glades reservoir is bad for Lake Lanier, bad for the Chattahoochee River and bad for local taxpayers, however good it may be for its promoters.

To make comments to the Corps of Engineers, go to www.gladesreservoir.com/submit-comments. For information about joining and supporting the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, visit www.chattahoochee.org.

Sally Bethea is executive director for the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper organization.