To ease reliance on water on Lake Lanier and flood-control dependency on the Chattahoochee River , a Georgia congressman wants to reverse Jimmy Carter’s successful efforts to preserve the river’s flow through Southwest Georgia

It took Jimmy Carter more than a decade during stints as governor and president to defeat a dam project at Sprewell Bluff, where the Piedmont region gives way to the Coastal Plain.

Thus, the Flint River remains one of only 40 U.S. rivers that open flows at least 200 miles.

Now, to ease the reliance on water on Lake Lanier and flood-control dependency on the Chattahoochee River, U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Gainesville, has revived the notion of altering the Flint ’s natural course.

He wants more dams along the river.

“In 1986, no one could imagine the need we have for water supply,” Deal told the Gainesville Times newspaper in an article published this week. “The whole dynamic of the lake and river has changed. Population growth has been part of it, but the drought is another.”

The Flint has two relatively small dams: The Albany Dam forms Lake Chehaw , a 1,400-acre Georgia Power; and the Crisp County Dam backs up water for Lake Blackshear , the Crisp County Power Commission’s 8,500-acre impoundment.

The River and Harbor Act of 1945 authorized three Flint power-storage reservoirs above Albany . As governor, Jimmy Carter successfully defeated one the most controversial of the three — a proposed Sprewell Bluff dam. And later, as president, Carter initiated a process that ultimately resulted in the elimination of all three projects in 1986.

Noting that recent discharges from Lake Lanier resulted in the lake’s lowest-ever level, Deal says that Lake Lanier was designed to be augmented by the Flint River , but those plans were halted by Congress in 1986.

Deal is proposing to resume at least two of three Flint reservoir projects, including a 35,805-acre Sprewell Bluff dam; and a smaller project, a Lazer Creek dam, about eight miles downstream. The Sprewell Bluff project alone would cost an estimated $563 million.

“I think we’re at a point in time that we need to go back and look at these as alternative reservoirs,” Deal told the Gainesville Times. “They could certainly take some of the pressure off Lanier. I think it’s time we recognized that the drainage basin that supports Lanier is so small that it can’t afford to be the only holding reservoir … Nature has shown us that it is not realistic for Lanier to be the primary resource,” he said.

The Gainesville newspaper said that state Rep. Bob Hanner, R-Parrott, whose South Georgiadistrict includes a major section of the Flint , declined to comment on the proposal

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