Proceedings of the 1991 Georgia Water Resources Conference, March 19-20, 1991, Athens, Georgia.Allocations for consumptive use of Chattahoochee River waters have led to a myriad of legal issues. Federal
and state statutes and case law are conflicting. Complicating the matter are political considerations among the three states involved. The need for identification of the issues has been stimulated by the
Corps of Engineers' proposal to divert a portion of the Buford project waters from non-consumptive use in hydropower generation to consumptive use as municipal water supply. The implementation of this proposal will arguably have a significant impact on downstream users. Three questions evolve from the proposal. First, is there an ascertainable limit to consumptive use of
Chattahoochee waters and is that limit being approached? Second, what political entities have the power, or the right, to allocate consumptive use of the Chattahoochee
River waters? Finally, what are the mechanisms for such allocation and which mechanism will provide equitable
allocation amongst the various users? This paper concentrates on answering the last two questions.Sponsored by U.S. Geological Survey, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the University of Georgia, Georgia State University, and Georgia Institute of Technology.This book was published by the Institute of Natural Resources, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602 with partial funding provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey, through the Georgia Water Research Institute as authorized by the Water Resources Research Act of 1984 (P.L. 98242). The views and statements advanced in this publication are solely those of the authors and do not represent official views or policies of The University of Georgia or the U.S. Geological Survey or the conference sponsors
