How bad was the drought that plagued much of the U.S. last year?
According to Georgia's Gov. Sonny Perdue, it couldn't have been
much worse.  In October, he declared the northern part of his
state to be under a water-supply emergency, and he appealed to
President Bush to declare 85 Georgia counties as federal
disaster areas. As he addressed reporters that had gathered by
the shores of Lake Lanier, the main drinking water source for 5
million residents in the greater Atlanta area, he stood on
ground that should have been well under water. Instead, it was
packed red clay.  To abate his state's drinking-water woes,
Perdue filed an injunction against the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, seeking to ease regulations that require Georgia to
send water downstream to Alabama and Florida. To meet the needs
of a Florida hydroelectric power plant, and protect mussels and
other endangered species, the Corps releases 5000 cubic feet of
water/second from the dam between the lake and the Chattahoochee
River—water that Perdue sa