Wed., December 9, 2009 2:26pm (EST)

River Basin Stakeholders Aim To Protect Their Needs

By Edgar Treiguts

Updated: 3 years ago

ATLANTA  —   A new group trying to protect local interests along the Chattahoochee River says it’s encouraged by a governors meeting next week to negotiate water-sharing between Georgia, Florida and Alabama. But they say their voice needs to be heard to protect as well.

Thursday will be the first meeting of the ACF Stakeholders - a group formed a year ago to represent local communities and interests in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin. The group includes officials from local water authorities, power companies, and local business and government.

Wilton Rooks with ACF says it’s good the three governors are meeting again, but he worries that local needs might get short-changed:

"That does not mean that the governors cannot come up to a decision that will benefit everybody, but I think the governors are in a classical, 'lets compromise and get this issue out-of-the-way' kind of mode".

Rooks says this first meeting of the ACF stakeholders in Albany will be used to map-out issues the group plans to focus on.