Lake Lanier News Updates

Lake Lanier is on the way to having its first State Park. Governor Sonny Perdue has signed next year's budget. $18.6 billion will be spent and that includes $14 million for construction of Don Carter State Park on Lake Lanier.

The park will be located on the north end of the lake. It will cover a 1000-acre tract on North Browning Bridge Road, off Clarks Bridge Road and north of the Olympic Canoe and Kayaking venue.

George Saidah's life has taken him from a childhood in Beirut, Lebanon, via Paris, Indiana and assorted other places. He arrived in the U.S. around 25 years ago speaking almost no English but still managed to become a highly successful computer enterpreneur. The latest twist on his life's journey led to his arrival at Bald Ridge Marina on Lake Lanier this weekend.

The mission of the Lake Lanier Convention & Visitors Bureau should be relatively straight-forward. Its responsibility is to keep people visiting Gainesville and the surrounding areas of Lake Lanier. A beautiful lake an hour north of Atlanta should be an easy sell.

However, their task has been tricky in the last few years with a national recession and two years of low water levels in Lake Lanier. The CVB staff have worked to counter-act negative news about the lake and this week they unveiled a new website to attract visitors from Atlanta: SlipAwayToday.com.

Stacey Shelton at the AJC is reporting tha the nonprofit environmental organization "Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper" has caught the city of Cumming breaking clean water laws.

The city is looking to build an aquatic center, and during the search they apparently bulldozed through a stream near Lake Lanier on Pilgrim Mill Road. The UCR called in inspectors from Georgia Environmental Protection Division who confirmed that the construction activity was sending mud and silt into Lake Lanier.

Representatives from Georgia, Florida and Alabama regularly get to together on a conference call with the Corps of Engineers to discuss water issues. Thursday's call produced bad news for Georgia and Lake Lanier.

The Corps of Engineers denied metro Atlanta’s request to minimizewater releases from Lake Lanier for another month. It was good news for Florida and Alabama who opposed the corps' decision last year to reduce releases from November through April 30.

Lake Lanier will receive $8.3 million in federal stimulus money out of a larger package of $293 million for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Mobile District.

There is a possible added bonus in the form of $3 million to complete a study tied to the management of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin. That basin and the use of its water has been a contentious issue between Georgia, Alabama and Florida. The new study would set guidelines for when and how much water should be released from Lanier. That may prove welcome to people in the Lake Lanier area because the Corps recently surprised people with its decision to increase outflows from the lake.

Here is a full breakdown of the projects planned for Lake Lanier. The Corps promises to start awarding the first contracts within 45 days.

Next weel on April 22nd, Lake Lanier's campgrounds will start reopening for the 2009 summer season. Old Federal and Bald Ridge opened early at the end of March and the others are accepting campers in just a few days.

This year, there will be one more campground to add to the list. Bolding Mill Campground is being re-opened. Bolding Mill is on one of the quieter, northern parts of the lake, opposite War Hill Park. It was closed to the public in 2005 and will relaunch with the following amenities:

• RV sites with electricity and water plus more basic tent sites
  
• All sites have a picnic table, fire ring, and grill
• Shower facilities, playground, and boat ramp.

After a very wet March, Lake Lanier has been transformed. Earlier this year fishermen had few choices on where to enter the lake. Water levels were nearing record lows and few boat ramps were open.

Now in mid-April the lake's water deficit is less than half what it was and the majority of boat ramps are open. When the lake hovers around 1062 feet above sea level as it does now, up to a dozen boat ramps open up each time the lake rises another foot.

War Hill Park in Dawson County is one of those to reopen recently with an additional three boat ramps now available.

Dawson County Recreation Director Lisa Henson commented at Access North Georgia that the improved water levels stimulates activity and events in the local area:

"We are getting great feedback on the recent campsite and picnic area improvements and work is continuing on the pier renovations and beach area. If you haven't been out to the park recently, you've really got to see it. We've already had three requests for fishing tournaments out of War Hill Park and most recently a request for a September wedding using the entire park."

A year ago, Georgia state legislators were full of plans to tackle Georgia's drought. They passed a statewide water plan and also attempted some publicity stunts including an effort to move Georgia's border north to the Tennessee River.

A year later and the drought still persists. Lake Lanier is better than it was last year, but is still 14 feet below full pool. However, state legislators have almost entirely ignored the problem. At least a half dozen proposals have been introduced by lawmakers from both parties but chamber leaders have not publicly made any of them a priority.

A local legislator is trying again.

State Senator Chip Pearson (R-Dawsonville) passed a resolution in the Senate urging Congress to enable the building of more reservoirs in north Georgia.

The resolution recommends the construction of more reservoirs upstream from Lake Lanier. The potential area of construction includes in the Chattahoochee National Forest. Atlanta area currently relies on the Chattahoochee for 75 percent of its water making it the the smallest river in the nation providing a main water source to a city the size of Atlanta.