Corps Begins Study Of ACT Water Supply

The Mobile Engineer District is beginning a study to evaluate potential changes to water supply in the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa (ACT) rivers basin.

The district recently held scoping meetings on the study, which will evaluate an increased allocation of storage to water supply at Allatoona Lake and potential flood operation changes for two Alabama Power Company (APC) reservoir projects, Weiss Dam and Lake and the Logan Martin Dam and Lake.

In January, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia issued a judgment in Georgia et al. v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, No. 14-cv-03593 (January 9, 2018). The judgment held that the Corps had unreasonably delayed action on Georgia’s water supply request, and directed the Corps to take final action responding to that request by March 2021. The state of Georgia submitted an updated request to the Corps on March 30.

The flood storage analysis will evaluate APC’s proposal to raise the winter water level and, at the same time, lower the upper limit of flood storage at the Weiss and Logan Martin projects where the Corps has navigation and flood risk management oversight.

Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act, the Corps intends to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) on these potential changes to the Water Control Manuals (WCM) for the three projects and to the overall Master WCM for the basin.

For more information, visit the Mobile District’s website, www.sam.usace.army.mil.