Ben Morgan first noticed something was really wrong on Lake Lanier near Atlanta over Labor Day Weekend. The summer of 2007 had been unusually hot and dry, and everybody knew that a drought was drawing the lake level down. But the lake, huge at 39,000 acres, always fluctuated by up to 12 feet a year and at first, he didn't pay it any mind.

Then Morgan, who owns and operates a towing company and has tooled around Lanier for his own pleasure on a houseboat for more than a decade, started getting more calls from boats running aground. That holiday weekend, he never stopped.

"We were pulling boats off what they normally thought was deep water, which used to be deep water, but wasn't anymore," he says. "This took everyone by surprise."

Boaters were hitting shoals that hadn't been there the week before. Or ramming into tree snags that had been submerged since the manmade lake was first filled in 1957.

"People were knocking their out–drives off, or damaging them to where they couldn't steer," Morgan says, "They were just going in circles, with the natural inertia of the boat."

LANIER AT RECORD LOWAssociated PressExposed lake bed and beached boat docks are shown at Lake Lanier in Cumming, Ga.

Harsh drought conditions in the south, combined with the need to protect endagered species, are causing Lake Lanier and other bodies of water to shrink to unprecedented levels.

Since Labor Day, the lake has fallen about an inch per week, which translates into nearly a new foot of shoreline. When it's full, the lake sits 1,072 feet above sea level. As of early January, it has dropped 20 feet, to 1,051, the lowest level ever.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has 475 permanent hazard markers on Lake Lanier. Right now, they're all several feet up in the air, says Michael Lapina, the Corps' chief park ranger in the Mobile District. As the water level drops, rangers go out everyday and mark new low water hazards. They've set 140 orange makers on 125 new hazards that are usually deep underwater.

"Lake Lanier is a pretty deep lake, so people are used to zooming around on their boats wherever they like," he says. "They have to be careful now. Being the size it is, there's still a lot of potential for boating, but there's also potential for accidents for people not familiar with the lake."

Lake Sidney Lanier, named for a 19th century Georgia poet, was dug out in the post World War II heyday of massive U.S. Army Corps of Engineers public works projects. More than 700 families were moved when Buford Dam was built and the lake was filled to provide hydroelectric power, drinking water to nearby Atlanta and, ironically, flood control. Part of the Corps' mandate was to ensure that enough water kept flowing down the Chattahoochee River through Alabama and Florida and out to the Gulf of Mexico to keep the downstream cities supplied with drinking water and oyster and mussel fishermen in business.

That means recreational boaters and those businesses that supply them aren't the only ones hurting. Downstream on the parched river system, there's little sympathy in some quarters.

"We've got to earn a living and they can sacrifice, too," one oysterman told the Palm Beach Post earlier this month. "If they can't get to their boats on Lake Lanier because their dock is standing dry, tell them to do what we do: Get a dinghy and paddle out."

THE SUBMERGED EMERGES

Floating docks are no longer floating. Boat ramps don't come close to reaching the water – only two of 42 public ramps are even open. Fishing tournaments and the Christmas Parade of Boats were cancelled. And things are emerging out of the water that people haven't seen in 50 years. Morgan, who trolls the lake regularly, has seen old roads appearing, old iron truss bridges, the bleachers of an old drag way and boats that have been submerged for years.

"Everyday, something new is popping up," he says.

Marinas are pulling boats out of the water. One marina, Starboard Cove, normally in a shallow cove, is sitting high and dry in what Morgan describes as a mud flat "wasteland." All of the boats are parked in the parking lot. "We are completely dry, unfortunately," says manager Michael Duling. "We started pulled boats out in October."

Little islands have merged and become big islands. "There's a lot of dirt out there," said one long–time boater.

'GOING TO GET WORSE'

Associated PressDocks are nearly grounded on lake front property.

All of the Southeastern United States for much of the past year has been in what climatologists call "exceptional" drought, a definition reserved for extreme cases that are seen usually once every 50 years.

"People think of the East as having 40–inches plus of rainfall each year, and humidity. But it's important to understand that drought is a natural part of the climate in the east," says Mark Svoboda, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska. "In the West, we have massive reservoirs for many, many years of water storage to buffer against long–term drought. We're seeing now how vulnerable areas in the East can be, because they're not set up to buffer drought."

Svoboda says the drought could be blamed, in part, on the high–pressure system, known as the Bermuda High, moving north over the Southeastern United States. That system doesn't allow for cloud formation, he says. And it's so stable that it repels hurricanes, drought–busting storms and even rain showers.

He sees no relief in sight. Cooler than normal sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific have ushered in another weather pattern called La Niña. La Niña stops the flow of moisture that typically comes up from Mexico every winter. That means drier, warmer winters from Southern California to South Carolina.

"It's like turning off the tap," Svoboda says. "It doesn't bode well for any sort of freakish, abnormal winter recovery. It probably means that the drought will persist into 2008. Things are going to get worse before they get better."

BOAT SALES DOWN

People are wondering how low the lake will go. Although a sprinkling of rain around Christmas brought the lake level up a half foot, levels are again dropping. "When it gets to 1,045 feet, I'm going to pull my boat out," Morgan says. He'll take it to Florida, where his company, Morgan Marine, operates in other locations. "If it goes that low, there'll be pretty much no way to get boats out of the water. You'll be stuck."Associated PressBoats are docked at Aqualand Marina and exposed lake bed surfaces in Flowery Branch, Ga.

Vernita Loveridge, area manager of Holiday Marina, the largest of the lake's 10 marinas, with 1,300 slips, says the facility has extended seven docks, relocated some 300 boats and pulled 150 out of the water. They have one of their two ramps open, the only private ramp still open on the lake.

She's never seen this much shoreline, nor the amount of junk on it.

"We had a shore clean up not too long ago," she said. "People were finding old engine blocks that had been used as anchors, lawn chairs, umbrellas, air conditioners, box spring mattresses in addition to all the cans and bottles. Probably the most unusual thing they found was a 1970–model push Hoover."

Mack Farr, who runs Outdoor Enterprises, has been a fishing guide on Lake Lanier for nearly 30 years, said he's never seen anything like this. "This has really affected a lot of people." Boat sales have dried up. Rentals are non–existent.

Tackle and bait shops are hurting, too. John Bowen, who manages a sporting goods store on the lake, said the past three months have been the worst for business he's ever had. And Farr said that, for many, the worry is turning to panic. "If we lose another foot and a half of water, we may not be able to get a boat in the water," he says. So he's helping to spearhead an effort to raise about $20,000 to pour more concrete and extend one of the ramps to the shoreline.

Lake Lanier, normally a bustling playground for water skiers, fishers and house boaters, is quiet. "People just aren't out there," he says. "They're scared. They're thinking, 'I've got a really nice, big boat, I don't want to wrap it around a tree.' They're being prudent boaters. And that's smart."

RARE SPECIES COMPLICATE MATTERS

A few endangered species make water control on Lake Lanier a bit tricky and have limited the Corps' ability to respond. Because of the endangered gulf sturgeon, the Purple Bankclimber, a type of mussel, and the fat three–ridge mussel, the Corps' water control plan requires the agency to release 5,000 cubic feet of water per second from Lake Lanier.

That's about 37,500 gallons of water sent over the dam every second, or about 324 million gallons a day. When water levels got alarming low in the fall, the Corps asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for permission to stem the flow to 4,750 cubic feet per second. The agency agreed. The agency also agreed to the Corps' latest request for a reprieve, to 4,500 cubic feet per second, but only under certain conditions, which, with the light showers over Christmas, have not yet been met.

Those who use Lake Lanier want the Corps to release less water.

"I'm so sick of hearing about endangered species," said Arlene Ingram, a realtor and avid boater who lives on Lake Lanier. "The lake got depleted before people really took notice, and they're still releasing way too much water. We just can't seem to buy a rain shower."

About the only one not worried about the drought and falling lake levels is Matt Flemming, owner of Lanier Sailing Academy. With a floating dock in deep water, the business, he says, is 100 percent operational.

"The shoreline's a little ugly, but, Lake Lanier is still 150–feet deep in some places," he says. "The shoals out there are still the same shoals we've worried about all these years. They're just larger. Occasionally, a tree will be sticking up. But we go slower. So we're doing fine."

Brigid Schulte is a reporter for The Washington Post.