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(AP) -- Lake Lanier may have finally reached full pool, but it's unlikely to rise much higher. 

That's because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to conduct "measured releases" to prevent downstream flooding and damage to federal facilities on the lake if it keeps climbing higher above 1,071 feet. 

The lake reached full pool Wednesday for the first time since September 2005. It had been as much as 20 feet below that level amid the epic drought that gripped the Southeast from 2007 to earlier this year. 

Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has been urging the corps to keep the lake full, saying that federal officials should store more water "away for an un-rainy day."

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