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Please accept this letter as the public comment of the City of Cumming, Georgia, a Georgia Municipal Corporation, regarding the Master Water Control Manual update. The notice sent by Tetra Tech, Inc., was received by the City of Cumming on November 24, 2009. Accordingly, the City offers this response within and pursuant to the forty-five (45) day window for public comment.

As you are aware, the City of Cumming has the most advanced water intake facility on the entirety of Lake Sidney Lanier. Through that facility, the City of Cumming provides raw water to potable water treatment facilities in both the City of Cumming and in unincorporated Forsyth County, which in turn provide all - 100% - of the public water needs of this County of over 160,000 residents. To put it mildly, the City of Cumming's intake facility and the water it provides are absolutely essential to the health, welfare, and safety of the citizens of Cumming and Forsyth County.

Given the City of Cumming's role in providing water to so many people, it is not surprising that the City's greatest concern focuses on subsection (b) of the scope review disclosed on the notice described above. Pursuant to that subsection, in July of 2012:

"the updated manuals will reflect that water supply withdrawals from Lake Lanier will be limited to the amounts authorized by relocation agreements with the Cities of Gainesville and Buford, Georgia. Those agreements, which were executed at the time of the reservoir's construction, authorized withdrawals of 8 million gallons per day (mgd) for Gainesville and 2 mgd for Buford, a combined 10 mgd."

According to the suggested revisions to the Master Water Control Manual, the above quoted withdrawals will be the only withdrawals for potable water production allowed from Lake Lanier. Put differently, in July of 2012, the United States Army Corps of Engineers proposes to essentially turn off the spigot for the City of Cumming and Forsyth County, at which time hundreds of thousands of people will find their faucets dry. Such a proposal is beyond comprehension - it is, in a word, reckless.

To understand the City of Cumming's position in this matter is will be helpful to brief you on the history of the City's public water utility. Prior to the creation of Lake Lanier, the City of Cumming had a potable water production facility located on Dobbs Creek. This filtration plant, which was in place as early as 1949, took water from Dobbs Creek, filtered it for consumption, and then distributed the water to the public through lines in the City of Cumming. Dobbs Creek flowed and continues to flow into Sawnee Creek which is a tributary to Lake Lanier. Thus, just as Gainesville and Buford received their water from Lanier tributaries, leading to their right to withdraw from the Lake, so too did the City of Cumming.

Importantly, there was no allotment or quota of water withdrawals from Dobbs Creek which governed the City's water production facilities. Instead, the issue was "how much water does the City need?" Such is what governed the amount of water withdrawn, and as time passed and the needs of the City grew, so too did the City's withdrawals. In short, the only allocation formula to determine how much water the City withdrew from Lanier tributaries was demand.

Despite the fact that the City's withdrawals were demand driven, the planning and implementation of the City of Cumming's water utility was a thorough and well managed process. As discussed previously, the City of Cumming has a raw water intake on Lake Lanier which is the most technologically advanced of any around. The intake can handle up to 105 mgd, which was chosen because it covers the allotments to the City of Cumming and Forsyth County set by the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District ("MNGWPD"), being 104 mgd total. In addition to the plant, the massive and expensive infrastructure is in place to move the raw water from the lake to the City's treatment plant, and Forsyth County is in an advanced position in this regard as well. Of course, the utility infrastructure from the plant to consumers is an even larger network of distribution lines and storage facilities. The City of Cumming and Forsyth County water utilities are, in a word, massive.

As part of the expansion of the water system, the City also expanded and upgraded its waste water treatment facility. The treatment facility can now handle more waste water and treats it to a higher level than it ever has before. In fact, the water that is returned to the stream nearby the waste water treatment plant is cleaner than the water which naturally flows in the stream. And in returning the water to a stream, the treated waste water is returned to the Chattahoochee basin, thus allowing downstream users additional water for their water production needs. [DBM1] [DBM1]

Importantly, all notices were given, permits obtained, and laws and regulations complied with in the construction of the City's state-of-the-art intake facility and in conjunction with the expansion and upgrade of the City's waste water treatment facility. This is true whether the requirements are from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, federal statutes, state statutes, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, or any other regulatory entity involved in the process. From the description of the City's utility system and its evolution, two things are clear:

(1) nothing about the development of the City of Cumming's utility was a rash or quick decision - everything was well thought out and planned to meet the needs of this growing area; and (2) all told, it is perfectly evident that the federal government, including the Corps of Engineers, was aware of and approved the City of Cumming's actions, including the investment of millions upon millions of dollars into what is now an infrastructure system worth in the billions of dollars.

And now the City of Cumming is told, with the investment complete and the infrastructure in place to provide water to the citizens of the City of Cumming and Forsyth County, the Corps proposes to turn off the water, which would turn the billion dollar utility into a massive set of empty pipes and thirsty people.

Given all that has been discussed herein, it should come as no surprise that the City of Cumming is vehemently opposed to the revisions to the Master
Water Control Manual, especially as disclosed in subsection (b) on the Notice received on November 24, 2009. To propose to end all withdrawals by the City of Cumming in July, 2012, thus cutting off water to hundreds of thousands of people in Forsyth County alone, is callous, reckless, and is a threat to human life and safety. Moreover, given that the Corps and federal government permitted and allowed the City of Cumming's expansions and
investments to occur, the Corps should be estopped from now taking that expansion and investment away by turning off the water. Finally, considering that the Corps' proposal would take a billion dollar asset and make it worthless, turning off the water, if carried out, would be the epitome of a taking without just and adequate compensation. To be blunt, when Lake Lanier was built the federal government compensated people so little - $6.00 and $7.00 an acre in some cases - that many people accused the government of stealing the land. Now, it appears that the government will do so again by rendering over fifty years of planning, investment, acquisition, and building worthless.

For the reasons set forth in this letter, it is with the utmost sincerity that the City of Cumming asks the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reconsider
the proposed revisions to the Master Water Control Manual, and especially to reconsider subsection (b) of the proposed revisions. While Judge Paul
Magnuson may have issued an order in the Tri-States Water Rights Litigation,[1] that does not mean that the Corps of Engineers should rush out and amend its manual when two and a half years still remain for the parties to resolve their differences, or for Congress to resolve the situation for them.

I thank you for your time and attention to this matter. If you would like to discuss this issue or any other with me, please do not hesitate to call me at (770) 781-2010.

Sincerely

H. Ford Gravitt

Mayor