Atlanta water use is called shortsighted

ATLANTA — When Rick McKee, the editorial cartoonist of the Augusta Chronicle newspaper, set out to capture the historic and severe drought that is afflicting the Southeast, he did not draw parched rivers or shriveled crops or brown lawns: He drew an oafish, bloated hulk of a boy holding up a straw to slurp up water from a smaller boy's water fountain.

Above the larger boy, a sign reads "Atlanta," above the other, "Everybody else."

It is, in many ways, a cartoon that sums up feelings across the Southeast now that Lake Lanier, the reservoir that supplies drinking water to most of metropolitan Atlanta's 5 million residents, is draining to historic lows. With government officials issuing stark projections that Atlanta could run out of water within three months, Georgia politicians have pleaded with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to decrease the amount of water being released. The flow has been required to save two species of mussels 200 miles downriver.

Yet while Georgia's leaders try to cast the water shortage as a battle between 5 million people and a few mussels -- with the message that greater priority should be given to Atlanta residents -- there is a growing sense that the metropolis itself is the problem: Critics say Atlanta's rapid population growth, coupled with blithe disregard for water conservation, is straining the region's ecosystem.

A break came Thursday in Georgia's 17-year water war with Florida and Alabama: The GOP governors of the three states agreed to reduce by 16% the amount of water released downriver from Lake Lanier, which would slow the drain on Atlanta's main water source.

But experts say the Southeast's struggles over water resources are far from over.

"What was not on the table, and what has got to be on the table, is Atlanta's unrestricted growth and cavalier attitude to water use," said Sally Bethea, executive director of Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, a watchdog group.

Such concerns are not coming just from environmental lobbyists, who have long argued that Atlanta must do more to conserve water.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, in opposing a request by Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue to President Bush to permit a reduced downstream flow, wrote in his own letter to Bush that Florida's $134-million commercial seafood industry depended on the water. Crist added that his state had acted responsibly in enacting water legislation. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley argues that downstream communities and a nuclear power plant in his state require water too.