"A federal appeals court handed Georgia an enormous victory in long-running, tri-state water litigation yesterday, overturning a decision by a federal judge that could have sharply curtailed the availability of water in Atlanta beginning next summer.

The three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the Army Corps of Engineers has authority to allocate additional water from Lake Lanier, a reservoir about 25 miles north of downtown Atlanta, to meet the increasing drinking water needs of the Atlanta metro area. The court gave the Army Corps a year to come up with a new plan for managing the lake.

In an unsigned joint opinion, the court reversed the July 2009 ruling by Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson of the District of Minnesota, who was assigned to handle the multi-district litigation."

Lawrence Hurley and Paul Quinlan report for Greenwire June 29, 2011. [2]