The 1071 Coalition used the 2007-2009 drought as a springboard to produce a Lake Lanier economic impact report.

The group has been silent since, as the money — spent mostly on that effort — has gone dry.

"I don't know where we go from here," said Alex Laidlaw, a marina executive who heads the organization, in an interview last week.

"We may try to fold it into the Lake Lanier Association at some point — we've talked about that," he said. "... I'm not sure (1071 Coalition's) got much value right now as an organization."

The Lake Lanier Association is a volunteer group founded in 1966 by a group of lake homeowners. The group has widened its membership to others interested in preserving the lake, and it has some 4,500 members today.

The 1071 Coalition formed in October 2008 with Grier Todd, chief operating officer for Lake Lanier Islands Resort, as its first president.

"We see this as a broad-based effort to bring business, government and individuals under one umbrella on behalf of Lake Lanier," Todd said at the time.

Named after the full pool level of Lake Lanier, the group had set the impact study as one of its first goals.

The group, later headed by Laidlaw, released the report in December 2010.

The study showed, among other things, that of the reduction of recreational spending on Lake Lanier from 2007 to 2008, about $87.6 million, was directly attributable to low lake levels.

Interest in the group waned after the report was released, but Laidlaw said he was "wearing his 1071 Coalition hat" last week when he attended a meeting of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District in Atlanta.

He presented a copy of the impact study to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials. Laidlaw also questioned corps officials on discharge amounts, particularly this spring, when the lake was touching or at 1,071 feet above sea level.

Laidlaw also keeps up with other key lake issues, such as plans to update the water control manual for the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin that includes Lake Lanier.

And he still pushes, as others have, for a full pool of 1,073 feet.

"I'd rather be at 1,073 and have too much water than be where ... I am today looking straight in the eyes of 1,050 at the end of December," Laidlaw said.