A story in the Anderson Independant reported: "LAVONIA — The chairman of a Lake Hartwell group says a suggestion for taking water from the lake for Atlanta could be workable if the region got something in return.

The suggestion calls for piping water from Hartwell Lake to Gwinnett County. It is one of a number of ideas that have been broached to a task force appointed by Gov. Sonny Perdue after a federal judge said metro Atlanta had no right to water in Lake Lanier. The judge has ordered the state to come up with other water sources by 2012 or revert to the original withdrawal amounts from Lake Lanier used by Atlanta in the early 1970s.

Tom Coley, chairman of the Lake Hartwell 660 Coalition, said the idea for taking water from the lake might be worked out. The 660 Coalition is a nonprofit group that aims to preserve Hartwell Lake and the economy that depends on it.

Coley said that even if Gwinnett County took 200,000 gallons a day from Hartwell, that would work out to about 0.309 cubic feet per second and would have little effect on the lake and its resources.

“That’s a Dixie cup in the ocean compared to the hundreds of cubic feet per second that go downstream to Savannah,” Coley said. “If that would be the cost for a full lake, economic development, and getting first crack at research centers or training facilities or tourism development, that would be a very small price to pay.”

Others, like Georgia state Sen. Jim Butterworth and state Rep. Alan Powell, are against the idea, saying it would damage future industry and growth in Northeast Georgia.

“In taking that much water, we’re talking about future jobs and industry and the ability to grow the way we would expect Northeast Georgia to grow,” Butterworth said. “And the message is bottom line, we just cannot stand for that.”

But Coley thinks it would have the opposite effect.

“Atlanta is not only an economic hub for the state, it is an economic driver for the entire region. If they are allowed to falter because of a questionable water supply, then there’s going to be jobs lost all up and down the I-85 corridor,” Coley said.

Powell said that using Lake Hartwell could permanently damage the security of water resources in this area. He pointed to the 10 water-planning councils already created by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to come up with a use plan that was fair.

Franklin County Commissioner Charles Cawthon is on the EPD’s Savannah Upper Ogeechee Water Planning Board. Cawthon said the suggestion for withdrawing water from Lake Hartwell caught the planning board off guard.

He said state law makes transferring water from one river basin to another illegal. The law also bans sanctioning “studies” to explore even the potential of water transfers from one river basin to another. Gwinnett County is in the Chattahoochee River Basin. Lake Hartwell is in the Savannah River Basin.

”We don’t meet again until March and I know the task force has a shorter timeframe than we do. We’re tasked with coming up with a long-term plan for water use (in the Savannah River Basin). So hopefully, we can get this going into the right direction,” Cawthon said.

Perdue plans to meet with his water task force again next week.

Perdue’s spokesman, Bert Brantley, said Wednesday night that the governor does not yet have a plan for solving the water problem. He stressed that the idea of using water from Lake Hartwell is just “one of 50 things that have been kind of thrown out there.”

“It is an option that is being analyzed by this task force,” Brantley said.

Robin Dake of WNEG radio contributed to this article."