## Facts

- Multiple actions were consolidated as MDL-1824 concerning the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ operation of the Buford Project (Buford Dam and Lake Sidney Lanier) in the Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint (ACF) River Basin.
- Congress authorized the Buford Project in 1946 as a multipurpose reservoir project, emphasizing navigation, hydropower, and flood control; project materials also addressed municipal and industrial water supply needs.
- After completion of the dam (1957) and enactment of the Water Supply Act of 1958 (WSA), the Corps entered contracts and operated the project in ways that dedicated substantial storage and releases to water supply for metropolitan Atlanta.
- Downstream interests in Alabama and Florida challenged these water-supply allocations as inconsistent with the project’s authorizing purposes and the WSA’s limits on reallocating storage and changing operations.
- The district court granted summary judgment largely against the Corps and Georgia interests, ruling that water supply was not an authorized project purpose and that the scale of water-supply allocation was a “major operational change” requiring new congressional approval.
- The district court ordered major reductions in Lake Lanier water-supply use after a transition period; the Corps and Georgia interests appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Buford Project’s authorizing enactment and contemporaneous legislative and planning record contemplated municipal and industrial water supply as a permissible project purpose.
2. Whether the Corps’ water-supply allocations and operations at Lake Lanier required additional congressional approval under the WSA as a “major structural or operational change” or as causing serious effects on other authorized purposes.
3. Whether the district court improperly displaced the Corps’ statutory interpretations and technical judgments when entering summary judgment and imposing a remedial schedule reducing water-supply use.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit vacated the district court’s summary judgment and remedial order and remanded.
- The court held the district court construed the Buford Project authorization too narrowly by treating water supply as merely incidental despite record evidence that water supply was considered in project planning and operations.
- The court rejected a categorical reading of the WSA that would treat substantial water-supply use as necessarily unlawful absent new legislation; the statute requires a case-specific assessment of whether operational impacts cross the “major change” or “serious effects” thresholds.
- The court concluded the Corps’ reasonable interpretations of the RHA/WSA framework and its technical balancing of project purposes were entitled to substantial deference.
- The court directed that the Corps reconsider operations and allocations through appropriate administrative processes rather than enforcing a judicially imposed cap and reduction timetable.

## Legal Principles

- Authorized project purposes may be determined by examining the full legislative and administrative record surrounding authorization, not solely the most prominently stated purposes.
- The WSA permits allocation of reservoir storage to municipal and industrial water supply without additional legislation unless the allocation requires a major structural or operational change or would seriously affect other authorized purposes.
- Whether WSA thresholds are met is a context-dependent inquiry that may turn on technical and operational effects on navigation, hydropower, flood control, and other authorized functions.
- Courts generally defer to the Corps’ reasonable statutory interpretations and technical judgments in operating multipurpose water projects, and should not replace agency balancing with judicial line-drawing absent legal error or arbitrary decisionmaking.
- When statutory interpretation and operational balancing require further agency analysis, the appropriate remedy is typically vacatur and remand for administrative reconsideration rather than a court-imposed operational regime.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit set aside the district court’s restrictions on Lake Lanier water-supply operations, holding that water supply was contemplated in the Buford Project’s authorization and that the WSA requires a fact-specific assessment, best addressed initially through the Corps’ administrative processes under a deferential standard of review.


In re MDL-1824 Tri-State Water Rights Litigation, 644 F.3d 1160 (11th Cir. 2011)