This is not about water rights. It is about having enough flow in the river for “endangered” sturgeon (fish) to mate. They need adequate velocity in the river or they will not reproduce. This is what extreme environmentalism is about.
Being an environmental engineer, I look for solutions. I have always suggested that we put some pumps downstream of the spawning area and recirculate flow just upstream. Then the velocity will always stay above what the sturgeon need.
This court decision could cripple the Atlanta metro area, which has no other water supply than the Chattahoochee River. We’ll be back to the crisis of 2009, when the Army Corps dictated that only the original population of northern Georgia when the reservoir (Lake Lanier) was built (1964) could withdraw water from the river. That was overturned by a judge in 2012.
FYI - Lake Lanier is supplied by the Chattahoochee *AND* the Chestachee rivers.
The two watersheds are actually quite small given the size of the lake — compared to nearby lakes. ALL major ‘lakes’ in Georgia are man made.