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Thursday, August 14, 2008
No majority in America
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I wrote this piece for Friday’s editorial page, and I hesitate to throw it out amongst you for fear of where some of you may take the topic.
Be adult.
NBC might be trying to convince you otherwise, but Michael Phelps is far from the only face of America at the Olympic Games in Beijing.
American Olympic sprinter Tyson Gay is of African heritage. Patricia Cardenas, an attacker on the U.S. women’s water polo team, is Hispanic and lists hip-hop and Spanish rock ’n’ roll as her favorite forms of music. Eva Lee, an American badminton star, was born in Hong Kong and partners in women’s doubles with Mesinee “May” Mangkalakiri, a Thai-American.
They and millions of others around this great country embody what you might call the changing complexion of America, a country that by 2042 will have no majority ethnic group, according to projections by the federal government. As a new report documents, immigration and higher birth rates among minority groups are rapidly altering the makeup of our classrooms, our workplaces and even our Olympic teams.
And what will that change mean to the America of 2042?
Very, very little. We are a nation and a people defined more by shared values and goals than by ethnicity. The Founding Fathers may have been almost exclusively English, but they preached ideals that they saw as universal, even if the mind-set of the time prevented them from seeing that “universal” included the tribes that were native to this continent and the slaves that had been forcibly imported from Africa.
Today’s U.S. citizens may look less like the Continental Congress and more like a general session of the United Nations, but they are no less American than Thomas Jefferson or Martha Washington were. That reality can’t be lost on the rest of the world, watching Americans of all hues and appearances proudly standing on the awards podiums in Beijing while “The Star-Spangled Banner” plays.
It shouldn’t be lost on those of us at home, either.
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Atlanta’s future in hands of judge
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The sense of drought-stricken panic that gripped North Georgia a year ago and made headlines around the country has eased considerably. The drought itself has eased as well, with only the northeast corner of the state still experiencing a D4, or exceptional, drought, the highest level on the federal government’s drought scale.
But that doesn’t mean the drought has ended. Rainfall levels have improved a little but continue to be well below normal — most of the state is still experiencing moderate to severe drought. And as that prolonged drought drags on month after month, our predicament has gotten more dire in important ways.
A year ago, state officials were ringing the alarm bells to draw attention to the fact that Lake Lanier had fallen to eight feet below full pool. Today, more quietly, the lake is 17 feet below full pool, nine feet lower than the levels that caused such concern in 2007.
In fact, the inflow from rivers and streams into the lake is so low that water levels would be dropping even if the Corps of Engineers didn’t release a drop out of Buford Dam for Atlanta, Florida and other downstream users.
Things may be coming to a head legally as well. U.S. District Court Judge Paul A. Magnuson has been brought in from Minnesota to hear the collection of suits and countersuits filed by Georgia, Alabama, Florida and other parties over allocation of water in Lake Lanier. This week, Magnusion issued an order that should greatly accelerate a decision on the most critical issue regarding metro Atlanta’s reliance on Lake Lanier.
Metro Atlanta has the right to draw water from the Chattahoochee River. Nobody questions that. The courts are being asked to settle a different but related question: Is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorized by Congress to store water for Atlanta’s future use behind Buford Dam?
In times of plenty, the answer to that question doesn’t matter, because there’s water enough for everybody. But in times of drought, such as these, it matters a great deal.
If metro Atlanta has the legal right to store water behind Buford Dam, it can use that storage space to hold water upstream to be tapped as necessary, giving it a much-needed cushion and allowing it to continue to grow if it uses water responsibly.
On the other hand, if metro Atlanta does not have that right and cannot acquire that right through Congress, it has arguably grown beyond its resource limits and faces some very difficult decisions and challenges. In other words, the core of the dispute is about the use of Buford Dam, a federal facility, and less about the use of the water itself.
As a matter of common sense — as a matter of practicality — metro Atlanta of course ought to be able to use Buford Dam to store water. But practicality and legality represent two different dimensions, and it is the legal dimension that matters most at the moment.
Georgia’s lawyers, including private attorneys from King & Spalding, insist the state has a strong case, that the record proves that Congress authorized the use of the dam to meet the region’s water needs. Florida and Alabama argue the opposite.
A U.S. circuit court has already ruled that under one important federal law, Georgia does not have authority to use Buford Dam for water storage. In his order this week, Magnuson noted that “the issues addressed in that decision will undoubtedly affect” the case in his own courtroom, which sounds ominous.
Georgia’s attorneys argue that the state’s authorization is found in other federal laws, and metro Atlanta has an awful lot riding on whether they’re right.
If Florida and Alabama lose this particular battle, they don’t lose much at all. But if Georgia loses — and we may have a decision on that question from Magnuson early next year — its situation becomes precarious.
The better solution for Georgia and everyone else is to reach a negotiated settlement outside the courts, where a full range of concerns can be addressed. Leaving it to judges, in a setting in which only narrow legal arguments are supposed to matter, is a dangerous course of action considering what’s at stake.
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