KENNESAW, Ga. (AP) — The Army Corps of Engineers is rewriting its rules on managing the Alabama River and its tributaries, and it is inviting public discussion as well — all in the midst of ongoing conflicts between Georgia and Alabama over those rivers.

The Corps on Monday held the first of four public meetings as part of a study and update of its management of the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa river basin, which flows from northwestern Georgia down across Alabama to Mobile.

Along with the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin, it has been part of a two-decade feud involving Florida, Georgia and Alabama that has spawned numerous lawsuits. A similar revision and rewriting process is set to begin in October for a new manual for the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint basin.

The meeting Monday in Kennesaw, and three meetings to be held the following three days in other cities, were meant to inform the public about the revision process and to get input from the people most directly affected. Similar meetings will be held Tuesday in Rome, Ga., Wednesday in Gadsden, Ala., and Thursday in Montgomery, Ala.

But the public meetings and the new water manuals, which will take at least three years to produce, will do little to alleviate tension between the three states, said Pat Robbins, a Corps spokesman.

The meetings are the first step in gathering data to rewrite a water control manual to guide long-term water allocations in the basin. The current manual was written in the 1950s.

The manual is intended to set out operating criteria that allow the basin to meet its federally authorized purposes — which include flood control, navigation, water supply, recreation, environmental preservation and hydropower — during normal, flood and drought conditions Robbins said.

Jennifer Ragsdale lives in Acworth on Allatoona Lake, a man-made reservoir fed by the Etowah River, which flows on into the Coosa. Ragsdale said she wants higher lake levels to improve water quality and make the lake better for recreation. She attended the meeting with her husband to learn about the Corps’ plans and express their concerns.

“This is the first time we’ve really had an opportunity to speak to the people from the Corps and find out what they’re proposing and to be able to give them our input because they need to hear from the public because that’s who’s affected,” she said.

Teresa Stendahl, who also lives on Allatoona Lake in Acworth, said she went to the meeting because she has long been concerned about environmental issues on the lake.

“It’s not about levels to keep your boat floating all year, it’s about sustainability and water quality,” she said.

She said she has been satisfied with the Corps’ management and efforts to protect the watershed but said the agency has too little funding and too little power to effectively solve any of the real problems along the basin. The problem, she said, lies with state and local governments that have allowed development to grow at a pace that exceeds natural resources.

Linda Flory, who lives in Ball Ground, on the Cherokee County side of Allatoona Lake, called the public meeting a “dog and pony show.” But she did say she was glad to get to talk with people from the Corps and that she planned to submit comments online.

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