By Alabama Public Radio
Washington DC – Georgia is closer to securing more water for Atlanta from a river basin it shares with Alabama and Florida. The U-S Supreme Court has declined to hear a case filed by those two states that challenged a plan that will allow the Atlanta area to use more water from Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee River ... which are part of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin. The ruling reversed earlier decisions by an Alabama federal district court, which blocked the plan. Under that plan, Atlanta could take up to 50 percent more water than it takes now ... eventually that would mean up to 537 million gallons of water a day. Georgia's environmental officials say the area can safely take up to 705 million gallons a day, but that figure has been widely disputed.