For the first time in recent memory, a state-sponsored meeting on water resources was held in LaGrange on Wednesday, and local West Point Lake advocates didn’t let the opportunity to talk about issues here slip past them.

“We want to emphasize, this is the Middle Chattahoochee Water Council. West Point Lake is your lake, too. It’s in your region,” Dick Timmerberg, executive director of the West Point Lake Coalition, told the group.

The council, made up of representatives from around the Middle Chattahoochee region, is one of several formed around the state after the legislature created a statewide water plan two years ago. The councils are charged with advising the state Environmental Protection Division - which then will advise the legislature - on what water resources are available and how they should be allocated. A draft plan is expected by the end of the year with the final plan complete in June 2011.

Members of the Middle Chattahoochee group spent much of Wednesday hearing from engineers on studies of availability of water resources. Local West Point Lake advocates, however, took exception with some of the findings.

The engineers’ study looked at available water vs. needs along the basin. Findings stated there is enough water in the Chattahoochee basin to meet all the needs. But the study doesn’t take into account congressionally authorized uses of the lake here or any other federal reservoir. It does, however, say all needs would be met if West Point Lake was dropped down to just 5 percent of conservation storage.

Troup County’s engineer, James Emery, said that would leave the lake between 621 and 622 feet above mean sea level, the same mudflats experienced in the 2007 flood.

“That would suck us dry,” Emery said.

Timmerberg told members of the panel and the engineers he was “amazed” the number was included in the study with no account for the lake’s uses, including recreation. He and others, including LaGrange-Troup County Chamber of Commerce President Page Estes and Patrick Crews, chairman of the chamber lake advisory committee, cited the 2006 study that points out a full West Point Lake has more than $700 million in local impact on the economy.

“I’m amazed that you would drain the lakes and say there are no gaps” between water supply and use, Timmerberg said. “You ignore a $700 million asset to this region.”

Estes said the lake is “vitally important” to the regional economy. More than 2.5 million people visited West Point Lake last year and 4 percent of local jobs are tied to the lake.

“We need you to rally behind this lake, too,” she said.

The middle Chattahoochee council will meet again in June before the water plan draft is issued.

Jennifer Shrader may be reached at jshrader@ lagrangenews.com or at (706) 884-7311, Ext. 236.