The Atlanta metro-area only has a few months of readily available drinking water remaining. So federal biologists on Friday permitted Georgia to keep more water in a reservoir that supplies the city and elsewhere in the northern part of the state, a decision that reduces water flows to Alabama and Florida.

The New York Times reports that “the action, by the officials at the Fish and Wildlife Service, will allow new rainfall to pool (collect) in Lake Lanier, northeast of Atlanta, a body of water that has been rapidly shrinking in the worst drought to hit the Southeast in 100 years.”

For more than 17 years, Georgia, Alabama and Florida have been fighting for the water in Lake Lanier, jockeying for the right to use it for drinking, power, recreation and wildlife preservation. The lake has shrunk to historically low levels, and without significant rain, experts predict that the lake could reach the end of its readily available water supply.

The new plan will initially reduce flows downstream by about 5 percent and later the flows could be cut back by as much as 17 percent if drought conditions worsen.

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