Two months ago, Georgia, Alabama and Florida ushered in three new governors, and with these changes there was rising hope that the three states might finally reach a water sharing agreement in a legal dispute that now spans two decades.
But, after two months in office, rather than making progress, the rhetoric coming from either side of the Chattahoochee doesn’t sound promising. In large part, this is due to two missteps by Gov. Nathan Deal’s administration that have effectively fouled up water talks before they could even begin.
In January, Deal’s Environmental Protection Division failed to inform Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources Board of a letter from Alabama’s Department of Environmental Management prior to an important Board vote on new rules regarding the highly controversial practice of interbasin transfers.
ADEM’s letter characterized the rules as only paying “lip service” to the potential impacts of moving water between river basins and urged Georgia to adopt a stronger rule. Some 1000 Georgians sent letters urging the same. EPD received only 21 letters in support of the rule, but dismissed the opposition letters as mostly “form” letters. The weak rule was adopted. Instead of passing a rule that would guarantee protections for downstream water users, the Board choose “flexibility” over substance.
Just as Gov. Deal was preparing to sit down at the negotiating table, his administration tells Alabama: “You’re not the boss of me!” It’s a snub that did not go unnoticed.
Then came Deal’s executive order aimed at building new water supply reservoirs—a solution sure to incite Alabama. At this news, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley told reporters that Alabama would renew talks only if Georgia held off on its reservoir plans.
Both of these actions by the Deal administration are bad news for Georgia, and in particular Metro Atlanta. For if Deal cannot strike a deal with Alabama and Florida on water sharing by July 2012, a federal court ruling will go into effect that removes Lake Lanier on the Chattahoochee as a water supply for the region.
Alabama and Florida have Georgia over a barrel; we need to win concessions from them and we’ll get that by playing nice—not by ignoring their letters.
Failure to come to an agreement with Alabama and Florida that includes some reasonable use of Lake Lanier will be a fiscal and environmental disaster for Georgia.
Indeed, without the use of the federal reservoir, Georgia will be forced to build its own water storage capacity. A Georgia Water Coalition analysis of seven reservoir projects currently in the works shows that these projects will cost $1.5 billion and will yield 300 million gallons a day. Deal’s proposal to dedicate $300 million to reservoirs over the next four years is a drop in that bucket. Dedicated to one project, it might be enough to build one of reservoir.
By comparison, keeping an additional two feet of water in Lake Lanier will yield 26 billion gallons of storage capacity. And, this could be accomplished at comparatively little cost.
New reservoirs would wipe out federally protected fish and alter healthy river flows because many involve permanently removing water from rivers through interbasin transfers. The proposed Shoal Creek reservoir in the Etowah River Basin would send as much as 80 million gallons a day to Metro Atlanta without any returns to the Etowah.
Deal has gotten off on the wrong foot, but he can correct these gaffes. He can support legislative efforts to improve the weak interbasin transfer rules adopted by the DNR Board, and he can, as requested by Gov. Bentley, hold off on new reservoirs.
Instead, the $46 million he’s dedicated to reservoirs in this year’s budget should be directed to water efficiency measures like fixing leaking pipes in water supply systems—an unfunded measure that was included in Gov. Perdue’s water conservation bill adopted last year.
That’s how you play nice with Alabama and Florida. Like it or not, thanks to a federal court ruling those neighbors are now high stakes players in Georgia’s internal water games. We must listen to them, and we must show them we are serious about protecting their interests.
