Georgia and Florida are ready to go to trial — again — to try to resolve the never-ending water war between the two states over a fair sharing of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers.
Attorneys for both states this week told the U.S. Supreme Court’s “special master” in charge of the case that an early November trial in Washington would be suitable. It could last two months.
While a trial would serve as yet another milestone in the 27-year battle to “equitably apportion” water from the rivers, which form the Apalachicola River at the border, it won’t keep attorneys, state officials and governors from mediation efforts. So far, though, direct talks between the warring parties have failed to reach a resolution that would provide ample water for metro Atlanta’s development and Florida’s oysters.
“Florida is committed to the mediation process and hopes that the mediator will be able to help the parties identify solutions to break through the decades of deadlock preventing resolution in this case,” the Sunshine State’s attorneys wrote in a case update Friday.
Ralph Lancaster, the mediator or special master, has gruffly admonished both sides to resolve the water wars via mediation. Or else.
“When this matter is concluded,” Lancaster said in a February 2015 conference call with attorneys, “one and probably both of the parties will be unhappy with the court’s order.”
So it’s back, apparently, to the courtroom where Georgia has largely prevailed. The crux of the matter: Is Georgia hoarding too much water?
In 2009, a federal judge announced that Lake Lanier was not intended as a water supply for Atlanta and, therefore, Georgia couldn’t slurp as much water as it wished. An appeals court overruled the judge two years later. Appeals by Florida and Alabama were denied by an appellate court and, later, by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2014, though, the nation’s highest court agreed to hear yet another Florida lawsuit that would cap the amount of water taken by Georgia from the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers. (Alabama is sitting out this round.)
Florida wants to keep Georgia water withdrawals at 1992 levels when metro Atlanta was home to only half as many people as it is today. Lancaster, the special master, was appointed in November 2014 to resolve the case. Mediation was agreed to a year later.
Georgia still appears to have the upper legal hand. Florida must first prove that Georgia is to blame for its water woes, in particular the damage done by a low-flowing Apalachicola River to oysters and the oyster industry.
Florida, according to its proposed trial schedule released Monday, will then argue that “an equitable apportionment requiring Georgia to cap its upstream consumption can redress Florida’s longstanding and worsening injuries without imposing unreasonable costs on Georgia.”
Gov. Nathan Deal declined to comment Tuesday. The state’s attorneys, though, in last week’s trial update, wrote that “Georgia will continue to commit substantial resources to developing solutions that could help the parties resolve this dispute.” Mediation talks will continue later this month and in July.
Katherine Zitsch, the director of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, said last week that both states “are very serious about (mediation).”
“It is, I would suggest, the best way to solve this,” Zitsch said. “… But who knows if we can cross that bridge?”
Georgia, which says the trial can be wrapped up in a month, expects to call 15 witnesses to testify, including past and present state and regional water officials and state water czar Judson Turner. Florida, which predicts a trial could last two months, may call three times as many witnesses, including Georgia riverkeepers and Georgia Tech scientists.
Lancaster, the special master, has yet to give his official blessing to the trial.
About the Author
