There is no denying that Florida lost a battle in the decades-long water wars that have embroiled Florida, Alabama and Georgia. However, Georgia’s “win” comes with two big lessons. Ignoring them will be a loss for the millions of people in metro Atlanta, south Georgia’s farmers and everyone in between who depends on the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers.
Credit: contributed
Credit: contributed
On April 1, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in the Florida v. Georgia lawsuit first filed by Florida in 2013. In a 9-0 opinion, the court determined that Florida failed to make a compelling legal argument and to provide sufficient evidence that Georgia used too much water from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) basin, or was responsible for the decline of Florida’s once-prolific oyster industry.
How we — as Georgians — decide to behave will influence the likelihood and outcome of future legal challenges by Florida or Alabama. How do we know? The court told us to keep two things in mind.
First, the court explicitly reminded Georgia of the state’s “obligation to make reasonable use of Basin waters in order to help conserve that increasingly scarce resource.” Georgia argued throughout the case that the state’s water use was reasonable. The state pointed to documented residential and agricultural water conservation measures and efficiency achievements to support its claims. The Court agreed.
The justices’ unanimous opinion means our existing water conservation and efficiency laws, policies and tools are here to stay. Since Georgia continues to expect population and economic growth, then there can be no more rollbacks or defunding of smart water policies. Our future access to necessary water supplies will depend upon full implementation of existing laws, adoption of new best practices and quantifiable demonstration of reasonable water use in all economic sectors.
Second, the court agreed with Georgia that “climatic changes” affect our rivers. Georgia’s central argument was that reduced river flows in Florida were not Georgia’s fault. It was drought, said Georgia, coming more frequently and impacting the states more severely that caused the damage to Florida’s waters. The science is clear that climatic changes are projected to get worse. We must plan now to mitigate the impact of prolonged dry weather.
With these two lessons in mind, there is a way to avoid future legal challenges and better deploy taxpayers’ resources. The governors of Alabama, Florida and Georgia can turn to an existing technical solution produced by the ACF Stakeholders, Inc. — a collaborative group of agricultural, municipal, industrial, environmental, individual and other interests that live, work and use the water resources of the ACF river basin in the three states. In 2015, we (Chattahoochee Riverkeeper is an ACF Stakeholders member) produced a Sustainable Water Management Plan that offers practical recommendations to improve water use and interstate sharing in the region’s most-contested river basin.
The ACF Stakeholders understand the step forward begins with three governors. Elected officials and decision-makers who speak the language of responsibility, collaboration, and equity when it comes to water and science have an opportunity to deliver on the court’s mandate. They must do so before it is too late for us and the water supply we all depend upon.
Chris Manganiello, Ph.D., is Chattahoochee Riverkeeper’s water policy director, and author of the book “Southern Water, Southern Power: How the Politics of Cheap Energy and Water Scarcity Shaped a Region.”
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