Lake Lanier Georgia - Lake Lanier Drought Marinas Parks

The Lake Lanier Association is currently preparing to sue the Corps of Engineers.

They're asking for financial help in their lawsuit and have prepared a Memorandum of Law supporting their case. It contains a huge amount of interesting and very worrying information about the effect of Lake Lanier's crisis on local business.

There was an important meeting about the future of Lake Lanier in downtown Gainesville last week.

Representatives from the Corps of Engineers, US Fish and Wildlife and other involved organizations attended and provided a lot of useful information. We're grateful to Ken Sturdivant for this report. Particularly interesting details from the meeting have been highlighted.

One by one, Lake Lanier's boat ramps have gone dry and finally we're left with only one: Tidwell Park.

The park is close is in the south-west section of the lake close to Cumming. To get to Tidwell Park, use Exit 16 on Highway 400 and drive along Pilgrim Mill Road to the end.

By rights this should have been a triumphant year for those of us who live and work around Lake Lanier.

The lake entered its 50th year as the focus of a $5.5 billion dollar industry and we got ready to celebrate its importance to North Georgia. Throughout the summer good news kept on coming:

Starboard Cove Marina

Lanier pumps $5.5 billion annually into the region through boat sales, hotel rooms, dock construction and permits, beer and ice sales, insurance, taxes. That number will probably be much lower next year.

Here's a quick summary of who's winning and who's losing from the water level crisis:

Big Creek Park

• Shoal Creek Park, currently just a boat ramp
  
• Big Creek Park, also just a boat ramp
• Chestnut Ridge Park, closed by the Corps in 2006 because of budget problems.

Sonny Perdue has $19 million dollars to spend on wonderful new fishing facilities in order to attract lucrative fishing tournaments to North Georgia. Unfortunately the poor state of Lake Lanier means that the first fishing tournaments have been canceled.

A new group is planning a protest about Lake Lanier water levels at Buford Dam on Saturday.

The new group is called "Save Lake Lanier".

Quarterdeck, one of Lake Lanier's few restaurants actually on the lake has just closed.

Jeff Hills and his wife Alina, who also own the Flowery Branch Yacht Club have decided to focus on just the one business.

Sometimes a great picture can really say more than a thousand words.

Why is Lake Lanier having such trouble supplying water to those people who need it?

Take a look at this map and the answer becomes clear...

Lake Lanier's Corps of Engineers have their heads in the sand, and they may soon have their day in court too. The Corps has decided that the solution to Lake Lanier's crisis to increase the flow out of the lake.

Wow - that was quite a lot of work, but finally we've managed to photograph and get details on every park around Lake Lanier.

We've added phone numbers, photos and details of the facilities at each park. In the next week of so we're also going to be adding directions

Looks like the announcement that Lake Lanier may drop another 5 to 15 feet and that Lake Allatoon may soon be empty is having an impact. News outlets and congressmen are finally realizing that this could be a pretty serious situation.

1. It doesn't rain any more. We're 18 inches down on where we should be for the year. Streams and rivers entering the lake are headed for record lows.

Think the lake is looking a little dirty? Nows your chance to help out. The Lake Lanier Association's 19th Annual Shore Sweep will be on September 29, 2007 from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m.

Lake Lanier is already lower than it has been for several years and the Access North Georgia is reporting that Lake Lanier’s Corps of Engineers project manager Jonathan Davis expects the lake to fall five more feet in the next month:

"A month from now, by the middle of October, if we stay with the inflows I read during this meeting, we could be down another five feet. We could be down to 1055 [feet about sea level], the lake has been below 1052, I think that's the historic low."

Lake water levels at this time of year are normally around 1067. If Lake Lanier really does fall that far, we'd be left with only nine parks with open boat ramps. Around forty parks would be forced to close their ramps. Click here to keep up-to-date on which boat ramps are open.