Feds Step in as Southern States Fail to Meet Water Agreement

"Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced Saturday that the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies will come up with their own water-sharing solution for the three states.'

"'Regrettably, it will necessarily be a solution being directed to the states instead of ... solution coming from the states,' he wrote in a letter to Gov. Sonny Perdue and his counterparts in Alabama and Florida."

"The governors wanted to come to a resolution by Feb. 15, then extended their deadline by two weeks, to Saturday. But it became apparent in a series of meetings that they were going nowhere fast."

"'Over the last two weeks, [Perdue's] optimism started to wane,' Brantley said. 'We didn't seem to be making the progress that we hoped for.'"

"Kempthorne's letter did have a bright side. He said some have observed more progress in the past three months than in the 18 years that the states have feuding over the region's river basins."

"'We have achieved some, but not all, of our objectives,' Kempthorne said."