Water management policy must be objective

By Steve Willis

Regardless of how the water wars go in the Southeast, you can be sure of one thing: They are unlikely to produce either competent or equitable management of the region’s water resources. Neither our politicians nor judges have the knowledge needed to resolve the extremely complex challenges of planning and managing our water resources.

The unpredictable and profound effects of climate change, population shifts and growth, industrial development, agricultural practices and changes in electrical power sources are bewildering yet little discussed in the incessant political and judicial wrangling over control of water.

Even if the decision makers were blessed with good intentions and the wisdom of Solomon, they would still lack the most fundamental management resource: adequate information. No state involved in these water wars has bothered to develop comprehensive or consistent information on their own watersheds over the past century. To make matters worse, each state has compiled what information it has in its own way, so none of the interstate data is compatible. No effective working committees have been established to manage interstate water resources, and the state management groups are politicized and partisan — not to mention recently established.

If we are to have anything other than a precipitously deteriorating regional water outlook, we must establish empowered, scientifically informed interstate commissions to thoroughly evaluate the condition of the region’s shared river basins and develop clear, equitable plans for their management. The key to making these commissions successful is the establishment of highly skilled professional staffs with civil service safeguards that protect them from political reprisal.

Scientists and managers who work at the whim of state politicians (think Georgia Department of Natural Resources) cannot be expected to be objective. Ultimately, speaking politically unpopular or inconvenient truths will get them fired.

The analysis, management and monitoring of river basins cannot succeed as a one-time effort, but must be developed over time, with policies monitored, adjusted and routinized to provide ever more dependable and desirable results. Successful planning for all our region’s activities is dependent on honest and accurate knowledge of our water problems and a clear, common understanding of how water will be managed, protected and allocated.

Taking a detached approach to water management may seem naive to people who have seen other issues mishandled by politicians and lobbyists making backroom deals, but Georgia and its neighbors will establish common, institutionalized and scientific river basin management sooner or later. There really are no other choices. The longer we delay, the more difficult and costly successful water management will be. Establishing management institutions sooner and freely is certainly the far superior alternative.

Steve Willis is founder of the Savannah River Basin Initiative.