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Lake Lanier / drought

Army Corps to release more water from Buford Dam as drought pulls Lake Lanier down

Lanier stood at 1,062.38 feet on Nov. 11, more than 8½ feet below summer full pool. The whole county's drinking water comes through one intake whose pipe sits at 1,020 feet.

FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will increase releases from Buford Dam as drought tightens across the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint basin, its Mobile District said Nov. 10. Drought operations took effect Nov. 2, after Lanier, West Point Lake and Walter F. George Lake all fell into the third of their conservation storage zones. The Corps said the larger releases will keep the three reservoirs "in balance" (Corps news release 26-033).

Buford Dam has been making minimum daily releases for "drinking water intakes, wastewater effluent dilution, and industrial cooling in support of the metro-Atlanta area," the Corps said. "These releases will now have to increase." The release does not say by how much or for how long.

Where the lake stands

At 4:15 p.m. on Nov. 11, the U.S. Geological Survey gauge near Buford Dam read 1,062.38 feet above sea level. Full summer pool is 1,071 feet; full winter pool is 1,070 feet (USGS gauge 02334400; USGS fact sheet 2008-3099). The gauge readings are provisional.

The lake has dropped steadily since late summer. Readings from the same gauge:

A year ago, on Nov. 11, 2025, it read 1,065.51 feet.

How much water leaves the dam is measured just below it. The daily average flow there was mostly between about 1,000 and 1,300 cubic feet per second from Oct. 25 to Nov. 6, then 1,660 and 1,710 on Nov. 8 and 9, and 1,070 on Nov. 10 (USGS gauge 02334430, Chattahoochee River at Buford Dam). The Corps has not said which days its increase began.

Why it is dropping

The lake has been short on rain for two years. In a letter this fall, Clyde Morris, vice president and secretary of the Lake Lanier Association, used National Weather Service records for Gainesville to count about 92.2 inches of rain from Aug. 1, 2024, through Aug. 31, 2026, against roughly 111.4 inches normally expected. That is a deficit of about 19.3 inches, or 17% below normal. January through August of this year brought about 28 inches against roughly 36 normally (Lake Lanier Association, Fall 2026 Lake Level Update).

Morris wrote that the Corps was releasing the minimum required for water supply intakes below the dam and for a water quality minimum of 750 cubic feet per second in the Chattahoochee at Peachtree Creek in Atlanta. At the time of his letter, inflow to the lake had averaged 338 cubic feet per second for the month, against required releases averaging 1,230. "That, in a nutshell, is why the lake is dropping so quickly," he wrote.

He also wrote that drought operations let the Corps store essentially all basin inflow above a 5,000-cubic-feet-per-second minimum flow required at Jim Woodruff Dam, near the Florida line. The Corps' Nov. 10 release says that with conditions worsening, Buford Dam will still have to release more.

The lake's record low, 1,050.79 feet, came during the 2007 drought, Morris wrote. On Nov. 11 the lake was about 11.6 feet above it (1,062.38 minus 1,050.79, our arithmetic).

What it means for Forsyth's water

Forsyth County and the City of Cumming both draw their raw water from one intake on Lake Lanier, owned by the city, to serve the customers of both utilities (Forsyth County, Water Intake Facility).

That intake was finished on Aug. 1, 2009, and can pump up to 105 million gallons a day. The bottom of its 72-inch intake pipe sits in the lake bed at 1,020 feet, which the city calls "one of the deepest intakes on Lake Lanier" (Cumming Utilities, Raw Water Intake). On Nov. 11 the lake was about 42 feet above that (1,062.38 minus 1,020, our arithmetic).

It was built after the last bad drought. In 2007, as the lake receded, the city's 1979 intake pipe ended up well above the water, and the city installed two temporary emergency pumps in the lake bed to keep water flowing to its older pump stations, according to Cumming Utilities.

The county is building an intake of its own off Tidwell Park, which it says will also give the county and the city a backup in emergencies. The county estimates it at $188 million and lists 2031 for completion. Tidwell Park closed on Aug. 3 for the construction and is expected to reopen in 2029 (Forsyth County, Water Intake Facility).

On the water

With the lake lower, the Corps urged boaters and other visitors to use caution and always wear life jackets, and warned that obstructions not normally visible can become hazards.

What happens next

The Corps said drought impacts are expected to ease this winter because of a very strong El Niño. The short-term forecast calls for normal to below-normal rainfall, while long-range models show an increased chance of normal rainfall over the winter, it said. It quoted the Southeast River Forecast Center: El Niño "increases the likelihood of certain impacts, it does not guarantee them."

What is not yet clear: The Corps has not said how much more water Buford Dam will release, or for how long. The release mentions industrial cooling but does not name the users. We have not checked the Corps' water control manual, which sets how the reservoirs are run at lower levels, so this article does not describe what happens if the lake keeps falling.

Sources

Written by the site's AI reporting agent from the sources listed on this page, and read and approved by the editor before publication.