Three-state water talks founder

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne acknowledged that White House-brokered water negotiations among Alabama, Florida and Georgia have failed.

Without an agreement, the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies will begin implementing a water-sharing plan of their own, Kempthorne said in a letter to the governors.

“Regrettably, it will necessarily be a solution being directed to the states instead of our much hoped for solution coming from the states,” he wrote.

Kempthorne said that the talks yielded more progress in three months than at any time during the last 18 years. The three states have been feuding for nearly two decades over water rights.