Supreme Court ready to wade into water war

[Disir]

TALLAHASSEE — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in a decades-old legal fight between Florida and Georgia over water flow into the Apalachicola River.

A court-appointed special master ruled in February that Florida had not proved its case that a water-usage cap should be imposed on Georgia to help the river and Apalachicola Bay, one of the most productive estuaries in the country, known particularly for its oysters.

Florida is asking for the case to be returned to the special master to develop a more “equitable” distribution of water between the states from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system. In briefs filed with the court, Florida has argued that an increase in water consumption by Georgia, including in the Atlanta area, since the 1970s is “effectively strangling the Apalachicola region.”

“For decades, Florida has done everything it could to avert that result — and Georgia has fought it at every turn,” a Florida brief said. “This litigation represents Florida’s last opportunity to stem Georgia’s inequitable consumption, and protect these irreplaceable natural resources, by apportioning the waters equitably between the states.”

In a brief asking the Supreme Court to uphold the special master’s report, Georgia said Florida is asking for “dramatic and costly reductions in Georgia’s upstream water use — cuts that threaten the water supply of 5 million people in metropolitan Atlanta and risk crippling a multibillion-dollar agricultural sector in southwest Georgia
Supreme Court ready to wade into water war


Water wars in the States.

 

[Ringel05]

TALLAHASSEE — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in a decades-old legal fight between Florida and Georgia over water flow into the Apalachicola River.

A court-appointed special master ruled in February that Florida had not proved its case that a water-usage cap should be imposed on Georgia to help the river and Apalachicola Bay, one of the most productive estuaries in the country, known particularly for its oysters.

Florida is asking for the case to be returned to the special master to develop a more “equitable” distribution of water between the states from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system. In briefs filed with the court, Florida has argued that an increase in water consumption by Georgia, including in the Atlanta area, since the 1970s is “effectively strangling the Apalachicola region.”

“For decades, Florida has done everything it could to avert that result — and Georgia has fought it at every turn,” a Florida brief said. “This litigation represents Florida’s last opportunity to stem Georgia’s inequitable consumption, and protect these irreplaceable natural resources, by apportioning the waters equitably between the states.”

In a brief asking the Supreme Court to uphold the special master’s report, Georgia said Florida is asking for “dramatic and costly reductions in Georgia’s upstream water use — cuts that threaten the water supply of 5 million people in metropolitan Atlanta and risk crippling a multibillion-dollar agricultural sector in southwest Georgia
Supreme Court ready to wade into water war


Water wars in the States.

And to think New Mexico and Texas are fighting over dirt..........

 

[Disir]

TALLAHASSEE — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in a decades-old legal fight between Florida and Georgia over water flow into the Apalachicola River.

A court-appointed special master ruled in February that Florida had not proved its case that a water-usage cap should be imposed on Georgia to help the river and Apalachicola Bay, one of the most productive estuaries in the country, known particularly for its oysters.

Florida is asking for the case to be returned to the special master to develop a more “equitable” distribution of water between the states from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system. In briefs filed with the court, Florida has argued that an increase in water consumption by Georgia, including in the Atlanta area, since the 1970s is “effectively strangling the Apalachicola region.”

“For decades, Florida has done everything it could to avert that result — and Georgia has fought it at every turn,” a Florida brief said. “This litigation represents Florida’s last opportunity to stem Georgia’s inequitable consumption, and protect these irreplaceable natural resources, by apportioning the waters equitably between the states.”

In a brief asking the Supreme Court to uphold the special master’s report, Georgia said Florida is asking for “dramatic and costly reductions in Georgia’s upstream water use — cuts that threaten the water supply of 5 million people in metropolitan Atlanta and risk crippling a multibillion-dollar agricultural sector in southwest Georgia
Supreme Court ready to wade into water war


Water wars in the States.

And to think New Mexico and Texas are fighting over dirt..........

hey, heY, HEY!!

That is my favorite water war.

 

[Ringel05]

TALLAHASSEE — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in a decades-old legal fight between Florida and Georgia over water flow into the Apalachicola River.

A court-appointed special master ruled in February that Florida had not proved its case that a water-usage cap should be imposed on Georgia to help the river and Apalachicola Bay, one of the most productive estuaries in the country, known particularly for its oysters.

Florida is asking for the case to be returned to the special master to develop a more “equitable” distribution of water between the states from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system. In briefs filed with the court, Florida has argued that an increase in water consumption by Georgia, including in the Atlanta area, since the 1970s is “effectively strangling the Apalachicola region.”

“For decades, Florida has done everything it could to avert that result — and Georgia has fought it at every turn,” a Florida brief said. “This litigation represents Florida’s last opportunity to stem Georgia’s inequitable consumption, and protect these irreplaceable natural resources, by apportioning the waters equitably between the states.”

In a brief asking the Supreme Court to uphold the special master’s report, Georgia said Florida is asking for “dramatic and costly reductions in Georgia’s upstream water use — cuts that threaten the water supply of 5 million people in metropolitan Atlanta and risk crippling a multibillion-dollar agricultural sector in southwest Georgia
Supreme Court ready to wade into water war


Water wars in the States.

And to think New Mexico and Texas are fighting over dirt..........

hey, heY, HEY!!

That is my favorite water war.

You 'back easters' have no clue what fighting over water is........ And another big one is on the way that will involve most western states pitted mostly against California who sucks up half the dwindling water supplies out west.

 

[martybegan]

TALLAHASSEE — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in a decades-old legal fight between Florida and Georgia over water flow into the Apalachicola River.

A court-appointed special master ruled in February that Florida had not proved its case that a water-usage cap should be imposed on Georgia to help the river and Apalachicola Bay, one of the most productive estuaries in the country, known particularly for its oysters.

Florida is asking for the case to be returned to the special master to develop a more “equitable” distribution of water between the states from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system. In briefs filed with the court, Florida has argued that an increase in water consumption by Georgia, including in the Atlanta area, since the 1970s is “effectively strangling the Apalachicola region.”

“For decades, Florida has done everything it could to avert that result — and Georgia has fought it at every turn,” a Florida brief said. “This litigation represents Florida’s last opportunity to stem Georgia’s inequitable consumption, and protect these irreplaceable natural resources, by apportioning the waters equitably between the states.”

In a brief asking the Supreme Court to uphold the special master’s report, Georgia said Florida is asking for “dramatic and costly reductions in Georgia’s upstream water use — cuts that threaten the water supply of 5 million people in metropolitan Atlanta and risk crippling a multibillion-dollar agricultural sector in southwest Georgia
Supreme Court ready to wade into water war


Water wars in the States.

These type of cases have been in the federal courts for ages.

 

[Disir]

TALLAHASSEE — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in a decades-old legal fight between Florida and Georgia over water flow into the Apalachicola River.

A court-appointed special master ruled in February that Florida had not proved its case that a water-usage cap should be imposed on Georgia to help the river and Apalachicola Bay, one of the most productive estuaries in the country, known particularly for its oysters.

Florida is asking for the case to be returned to the special master to develop a more “equitable” distribution of water between the states from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system. In briefs filed with the court, Florida has argued that an increase in water consumption by Georgia, including in the Atlanta area, since the 1970s is “effectively strangling the Apalachicola region.”

“For decades, Florida has done everything it could to avert that result — and Georgia has fought it at every turn,” a Florida brief said. “This litigation represents Florida’s last opportunity to stem Georgia’s inequitable consumption, and protect these irreplaceable natural resources, by apportioning the waters equitably between the states.”

In a brief asking the Supreme Court to uphold the special master’s report, Georgia said Florida is asking for “dramatic and costly reductions in Georgia’s upstream water use — cuts that threaten the water supply of 5 million people in metropolitan Atlanta and risk crippling a multibillion-dollar agricultural sector in southwest Georgia
Supreme Court ready to wade into water war


Water wars in the States.

And to think New Mexico and Texas are fighting over dirt..........

hey, heY, HEY!!

That is my favorite water war.

You 'back easters' have no clue what fighting over water is........ And another big one is on the way that will involve most western states pitted mostly against California who sucks up half the dwindling water supplies out west.

Ya. I was born in Tucson.

I know a little.

 

[usmbguest5318]

• Literature Review -- The Tri-State Water Wars

Water, a lubricant for many purposes, has been a source of friction in the arid West for decades. Yet this tradition of intrastate and interstate water disputes is no longer confined to the western states -- the water wars, with their urban, agricultural, and ecological combatants, have moved east. And in the course of that migration, the context and challenges of water allocation seem to have become more intractable. No setting illustrates this phenomenon more completely and immediately than does the dispute between Georgia, Florida, and Alabama over the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) River Basin and its ecologically impressive estuary, the Apalachicola Bay.

The ACF basin covers over 12 million acres stretching from north of Atlanta to the “Big Bend” of Florida’s Gulf Coast. Three very different rivers course through it. The Chattahoochee is largely impounded by reservoirs, several of which are maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) primarily for navigational, power, and flood control purposes. Atlanta derives most of its drinking water from one of these impoundments, Lake Lanier, which has also become a recreational Mecca. Alabama derives considerable hydropower downstream where the river forms the state boundary. In southern Georgia, the Flint River runs through a predominantly agricultural region. While mainly free flowing, the Flint feels the effects of massive groundwater withdrawals for irrigation, though the interplay between river and aquifer is not fully defined. The Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers meet to form the Apalachicola, which meanders through the flat Florida Panhandle, emptying into Apalachicola Bay. This region of Florida is sparsely populated -- most of the land along the river is in conservation status. This region is regarded by many ecologists as one of the planet’s biodiversity “hotspots.”

The dispute over the ACF began in the 1980s as a series of droughts combined with metropolitan Atlanta’s growing demand for residential and commercial water supplies to make all interests aware that the ACF has limits. Holding water in reservoirs to quench Atlanta’s thirst could mean less water for hydropower generation downstream and an interruption of the natural flow regime that is essential to the Apalachicola River and Bay ecosystems. Withdrawing more groundwater for agricultural irrigation in the Flint basin could exacerbate the problem. By the late 1980s, therefore, Alabama, Florida, and the Corps had become embroiled in litigation challenging Georgia’s efforts to impound and divert yet more water.

The battle centers on the proper apportionment of water from the ACF River Basin. Severe drought throughout the 1980’s, combined with the explosion of growth experienced by the city of Atlanta, and forced these three states to stake a claim for their respective interest in the ACF River Basin’s water distribution. The main concern of both Alabama and Florida is the threat that the city of Atlanta’s consumptive needs pose to their respective usages of the ACF River Basin.

Florida and Alabama base their challenges on the premise that Georgia should not have authorization to use the ACF River as the substantial freshwater supply for the city of Atlanta. In 1948, Atlanta was a much smaller place compared to the modern day metropolis that it has become. The Rivers and Harbors Act, adopted by Congress in 1946, gave the Army Corps of Engineers authorization to make improvements along the ACF River Basin.

Over the years, courts have differed in opinion over whether water supply, most notably supply kept for disbursement to Atlanta, was part of the initial plan of the Buford dam project. (See also: In Re MDL-1824 Tri-State Water Rights Litigation, 644 F.3d 1160 (11th Cir. 2011)) The Buford plan included a proposal for a dam and reservoir at the upstream Buford site. Before any discussion of whether water supply would be a benefit of the project, Atlanta did not seem to place much emphasis on the Buford project as a part of its long term plan for providing water to its inhabitants. In 1948, the mayor of Atlanta boasted that, “Certainly a city which is only one hundred miles below one of the greatest rainfall areas in the nation will never find itself in the position of a city like Los Angeles.” That statement has since proved to be ironic because of the hardships that Atlanta now faces in the realm of supplying water for its residents.

Normal flow levels are critical in order to maintain the environmentally rich Apalachicola Bay, which is home to one of the most fertile seafood industries in the United States. The fishing industry and the Florida, Georgia and Alabama towns that depend on it have been waging water wars with the ever-growing city of Atlanta for nearly three decades. The dispute is a perfect case study on the debate between just how far we should be willing to accommodate humanity’s modern needs when they threaten to exhaust an environmental treasure.


Note:

• Interstate water disputes of this sort have generally been resolved through four legal mechanisms: 1) congressional allocation over interstate commerce between the states; 2) interstate compacts approved by Congress; 3) United States Supreme Court jurisdiction to resolve disputes between the states; or 4) litigation under federal laws which apply to the states, such as the Endangered Species Act. Congress rarely acts to directly allocate interstate waters, and litigation is a high stakes proposition, so in 1997 the states entered into a novel compact in which they agreed to negotiate an allocation system for the ACF.

 

[Shrimpbox]

I live on the bay. This has been going on for a long long long time. The oysters are really hurting especially this year, but as with most of these calls no really knows why. There is less water coming down and there will have to be a reckoning at some point. For all the jockeying for position I don’t see this being solved by anything but political expediency. It would be nice if some agreement could come that reduces Atlanta’s consumption or at least makes them use it more wisely but I am not holding my breath.

 

[usmbguest5318]

I live on the bay. This has been going on for a long long long time. The oysters are really hurting especially this year, but as with most of these calls no really knows why. There is less water coming down and there will have to be a reckoning at some point. For all the jockeying for position I don’t see this being solved by anything but political expediency. It would be nice if some agreement could come that reduces Atlanta’s consumption or at least makes them use it more wisely but I am not holding my breath.

The oysters are really hurting especially this year, but as with most of these calls no really knows why.

As with most issues pertaining to the environment, the "why" is quite well understood and one side's efforts consist almost exclusively of attempts to confuse the matter and, in the minds of affected citizens who are not environmental scientists of some stripe, create doubt about the veracity of the "why," the basis being that there is a very slim chances that the reasons given may be inaccurate. Such is the way of selfish people.

 

[yiostheoy]

TALLAHASSEE — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in a decades-old legal fight between Florida and Georgia over water flow into the Apalachicola River.

A court-appointed special master ruled in February that Florida had not proved its case that a water-usage cap should be imposed on Georgia to help the river and Apalachicola Bay, one of the most productive estuaries in the country, known particularly for its oysters.

Florida is asking for the case to be returned to the special master to develop a more “equitable” distribution of water between the states from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system. In briefs filed with the court, Florida has argued that an increase in water consumption by Georgia, including in the Atlanta area, since the 1970s is “effectively strangling the Apalachicola region.”

“For decades, Florida has done everything it could to avert that result — and Georgia has fought it at every turn,” a Florida brief said. “This litigation represents Florida’s last opportunity to stem Georgia’s inequitable consumption, and protect these irreplaceable natural resources, by apportioning the waters equitably between the states.”

In a brief asking the Supreme Court to uphold the special master’s report, Georgia said Florida is asking for “dramatic and costly reductions in Georgia’s upstream water use — cuts that threaten the water supply of 5 million people in metropolitan Atlanta and risk crippling a multibillion-dollar agricultural sector in southwest Georgia
Supreme Court ready to wade into water war


Water wars in the States.

So this is about oyster production for resale ?!

The SCOTUS should have a good time with that.

Intuitively speaking, everyone living along a waterway should have a proportional right to the water.

How this might be defined would be a matter of rationality, precedent, rationing, and mathematics.

The strict constructionists on the SCOTUS will look to the U.S. Constitution, Amendments, and common law back to Elizabethan times to make a decision -- Roberts (nominated by GW Bush), Kennedy (by Reagan), Thomas (by GHW Bush), Alito (by GW Bush), and Gorsuch (by Trump).

The judicial activists will come up with whatever they damn well feel like on their own whims -- Ginsberg (nominated by Clinton), Breyer (by Clinton), Sotomayor (by Obama), and Kagan (by Obama).

The DEM's have come up with some god-awful nominations.

 

[yiostheoy]

I live on the bay. This has been going on for a long long long time. The oysters are really hurting especially this year, but as with most of these calls no really knows why. There is less water coming down and there will have to be a reckoning at some point. For all the jockeying for position I don’t see this being solved by anything but political expediency. It would be nice if some agreement could come that reduces Atlanta’s consumption or at least makes them use it more wisely but I am not holding my breath.

The oysters are really hurting especially this year, but as with most of these calls no really knows why.

As with most issues pertaining to the environment, the "why" is quite well understood and one side's efforts consist almost exclusively of attempts to confuse the matter and, in the minds of affected citizens who are not environmental scientists of some stripe, create doubt about the veracity of the "why," the basis being that there is a very slim chances that the reasons given may be inaccurate. Such is the way of selfish people.

A friend and state judge once told me "there are 3 sides to every story -- the plaintiff, the respondent, and the truth."

 

[usmbguest5318]

I live on the bay. This has been going on for a long long long time. The oysters are really hurting especially this year, but as with most of these calls no really knows why. There is less water coming down and there will have to be a reckoning at some point. For all the jockeying for position I don’t see this being solved by anything but political expediency. It would be nice if some agreement could come that reduces Atlanta’s consumption or at least makes them use it more wisely but I am not holding my breath.

The oysters are really hurting especially this year, but as with most of these calls no really knows why.

As with most issues pertaining to the environment, the "why" is quite well understood and one side's efforts consist almost exclusively of attempts to confuse the matter and, in the minds of affected citizens who are not environmental scientists of some stripe, create doubt about the veracity of the "why," the basis being that there is a very slim chances that the reasons given may be inaccurate. Such is the way of selfish people.

A friend and state judge once told me "there are 3 sides to every story -- the plaintiff, the respondent, and the truth."

​

I'm not rolling my eyes at the statement itself, but rather at the fact that you think it worth here saying. It contributes nothing to the conversation.

 

[yiostheoy]

I live on the bay. This has been going on for a long long long time. The oysters are really hurting especially this year, but as with most of these calls no really knows why. There is less water coming down and there will have to be a reckoning at some point. For all the jockeying for position I don’t see this being solved by anything but political expediency. It would be nice if some agreement could come that reduces Atlanta’s consumption or at least makes them use it more wisely but I am not holding my breath.

The oysters are really hurting especially this year, but as with most of these calls no really knows why.

As with most issues pertaining to the environment, the "why" is quite well understood and one side's efforts consist almost exclusively of attempts to confuse the matter and, in the minds of affected citizens who are not environmental scientists of some stripe, create doubt about the veracity of the "why," the basis being that there is a very slim chances that the reasons given may be inaccurate. Such is the way of selfish people.

A friend and state judge once told me "there are 3 sides to every story -- the plaintiff, the respondent, and the truth."

​

I'm not rolling my eyes at the statement itself, but rather at the fact that you think it worth here saying.

Judge Judy is fascinating to listen to.

She cuts right to the chase (English fox hunting expression) and ferrets out the truth (English rabbit hunting with ferrets expression).

 

[yiostheoy]

• Literature Review -- The Tri-State Water Wars

Water, a lubricant for many purposes, has been a source of friction in the arid West for decades. Yet this tradition of intrastate and interstate water disputes is no longer confined to the western states -- the water wars, with their urban, agricultural, and ecological combatants, have moved east. And in the course of that migration, the context and challenges of water allocation seem to have become more intractable. No setting illustrates this phenomenon more completely and immediately than does the dispute between Georgia, Florida, and Alabama over the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) River Basin and its ecologically impressive estuary, the Apalachicola Bay.

The ACF basin covers over 12 million acres stretching from north of Atlanta to the “Big Bend” of Florida’s Gulf Coast. Three very different rivers course through it. The Chattahoochee is largely impounded by reservoirs, several of which are maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) primarily for navigational, power, and flood control purposes. Atlanta derives most of its drinking water from one of these impoundments, Lake Lanier, which has also become a recreational Mecca. Alabama derives considerable hydropower downstream where the river forms the state boundary. In southern Georgia, the Flint River runs through a predominantly agricultural region. While mainly free flowing, the Flint feels the effects of massive groundwater withdrawals for irrigation, though the interplay between river and aquifer is not fully defined. The Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers meet to form the Apalachicola, which meanders through the flat Florida Panhandle, emptying into Apalachicola Bay. This region of Florida is sparsely populated -- most of the land along the river is in conservation status. This region is regarded by many ecologists as one of the planet’s biodiversity “hotspots.”

The dispute over the ACF began in the 1980s as a series of droughts combined with metropolitan Atlanta’s growing demand for residential and commercial water supplies to make all interests aware that the ACF has limits. Holding water in reservoirs to quench Atlanta’s thirst could mean less water for hydropower generation downstream and an interruption of the natural flow regime that is essential to the Apalachicola River and Bay ecosystems. Withdrawing more groundwater for agricultural irrigation in the Flint basin could exacerbate the problem. By the late 1980s, therefore, Alabama, Florida, and the Corps had become embroiled in litigation challenging Georgia’s efforts to impound and divert yet more water.

The battle centers on the proper apportionment of water from the ACF River Basin. Severe drought throughout the 1980’s, combined with the explosion of growth experienced by the city of Atlanta, and forced these three states to stake a claim for their respective interest in the ACF River Basin’s water distribution. The main concern of both Alabama and Florida is the threat that the city of Atlanta’s consumptive needs pose to their respective usages of the ACF River Basin.

Florida and Alabama base their challenges on the premise that Georgia should not have authorization to use the ACF River as the substantial freshwater supply for the city of Atlanta. In 1948, Atlanta was a much smaller place compared to the modern day metropolis that it has become. The Rivers and Harbors Act, adopted by Congress in 1946, gave the Army Corps of Engineers authorization to make improvements along the ACF River Basin.

Over the years, courts have differed in opinion over whether water supply, most notably supply kept for disbursement to Atlanta, was part of the initial plan of the Buford dam project. (See also: In Re MDL-1824 Tri-State Water Rights Litigation, 644 F.3d 1160 (11th Cir. 2011)) The Buford plan included a proposal for a dam and reservoir at the upstream Buford site. Before any discussion of whether water supply would be a benefit of the project, Atlanta did not seem to place much emphasis on the Buford project as a part of its long term plan for providing water to its inhabitants. In 1948, the mayor of Atlanta boasted that, “Certainly a city which is only one hundred miles below one of the greatest rainfall areas in the nation will never find itself in the position of a city like Los Angeles.” That statement has since proved to be ironic because of the hardships that Atlanta now faces in the realm of supplying water for its residents.

Normal flow levels are critical in order to maintain the environmentally rich Apalachicola Bay, which is home to one of the most fertile seafood industries in the United States. The fishing industry and the Florida, Georgia and Alabama towns that depend on it have been waging water wars with the ever-growing city of Atlanta for nearly three decades. The dispute is a perfect case study on the debate between just how far we should be willing to accommodate humanity’s modern needs when they threaten to exhaust an environmental treasure.


Note:

• Interstate water disputes of this sort have generally been resolved through four legal mechanisms: 1) congressional allocation over interstate commerce between the states; 2) interstate compacts approved by Congress; 3) United States Supreme Court jurisdiction to resolve disputes between the states; or 4) litigation under federal laws which apply to the states, such as the Endangered Species Act. Congress rarely acts to directly allocate interstate waters, and litigation is a high stakes proposition, so in 1997 the states entered into a novel compact in which they agreed to negotiate an allocation system for the ACF.

The people at the headwaters have always got the people at the mouth of the river by the balls.

 

[yiostheoy]

Speaking of Los Angeles (as Xelor has) the people there have drank their own Los Angeles River dry, several nearby lakes dry, and are draining water via aqua duct from Northern California down to Southern California, as well as a goodly portion of the Colorado River on the state line with Arizona.

Los Angeles is a complete disaster -- an Armageddon on the U.S. Pacific Coast.

 

[Wyatt earp]

TALLAHASSEE — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in a decades-old legal fight between Florida and Georgia over water flow into the Apalachicola River.

A court-appointed special master ruled in February that Florida had not proved its case that a water-usage cap should be imposed on Georgia to help the river and Apalachicola Bay, one of the most productive estuaries in the country, known particularly for its oysters.

Florida is asking for the case to be returned to the special master to develop a more “equitable” distribution of water between the states from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system. In briefs filed with the court, Florida has argued that an increase in water consumption by Georgia, including in the Atlanta area, since the 1970s is “effectively strangling the Apalachicola region.”

“For decades, Florida has done everything it could to avert that result — and Georgia has fought it at every turn,” a Florida brief said. “This litigation represents Florida’s last opportunity to stem Georgia’s inequitable consumption, and protect these irreplaceable natural resources, by apportioning the waters equitably between the states.”

In a brief asking the Supreme Court to uphold the special master’s report, Georgia said Florida is asking for “dramatic and costly reductions in Georgia’s upstream water use — cuts that threaten the water supply of 5 million people in metropolitan Atlanta and risk crippling a multibillion-dollar agricultural sector in southwest Georgia
Supreme Court ready to wade into water war


Water wars in the States.

Georgia is always messing with Tennessee, flordia and south Carolina water rights..

We always fighting them over lake Hartwell and other border lakes .

 

[Synthaholic]

So this is about oyster production

Only part of it. There are other grave ecological concerns to the species of fish and crab and reptiles who live in the Apalachicola River.

I'm on Florida's side. I lived in Atlanta for a while and with all the growth has come lawns instead of woods. Lawns take a lot of water. Atlanta should mandate low water friendly landscaping. As should every other town, frankly.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Speaking of Los Angeles (as Xelor has) the people there have drank their own Los Angeles River dry, several nearby lakes dry, and are draining water via aqua duct from Northern California down to Southern California, as well as a goodly portion of the Colorado River on the state line with Arizona.

Los Angeles is a complete disaster -- an Armageddon on the U.S. Pacific Coast.

Speaking of Los Angeles (as [B]Xelor[/B] has)....

??? Did you read my background post's first sentence and think I meant Los Angeles?

Water, a lubricant for many purposes, has been a source of friction in the arid West for decades.

"Sorry, Charlie," but the scope of my reference transcends various singlar notes that come to the attention of the hoi polloi and miraculously remain in their memory banks.

​

 

[Moonglow]

TALLAHASSEE — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in a decades-old legal fight between Florida and Georgia over water flow into the Apalachicola River.

A court-appointed special master ruled in February that Florida had not proved its case that a water-usage cap should be imposed on Georgia to help the river and Apalachicola Bay, one of the most productive estuaries in the country, known particularly for its oysters.

Florida is asking for the case to be returned to the special master to develop a more “equitable” distribution of water between the states from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system. In briefs filed with the court, Florida has argued that an increase in water consumption by Georgia, including in the Atlanta area, since the 1970s is “effectively strangling the Apalachicola region.”

“For decades, Florida has done everything it could to avert that result — and Georgia has fought it at every turn,” a Florida brief said. “This litigation represents Florida’s last opportunity to stem Georgia’s inequitable consumption, and protect these irreplaceable natural resources, by apportioning the waters equitably between the states.”

In a brief asking the Supreme Court to uphold the special master’s report, Georgia said Florida is asking for “dramatic and costly reductions in Georgia’s upstream water use — cuts that threaten the water supply of 5 million people in metropolitan Atlanta and risk crippling a multibillion-dollar agricultural sector in southwest Georgia
Supreme Court ready to wade into water war


Water wars in the States.

And to think New Mexico and Texas are fighting over dirt..........

Depends where the wind blows it to..

 

[Disir]

Interstate water disputes of this sort have generally been resolved through four legal mechanisms: 1) congressional allocation over interstate commerce between the states; 2) interstate compacts approved by Congress; 3) United States Supreme Court jurisdiction to resolve disputes between the states; or 4) litigation under federal laws which apply to the states, such as the Endangered Species Act. Congress rarely acts to directly allocate interstate waters, and litigation is a high stakes proposition, so in 1997 the states entered into a novel compact in which they agreed to negotiate an allocation system for the ACF.

Georgia has argued that even if the court ordered a new water-distribution plan, it wouldn’t guarantee that Florida would receive more water, since water flow is controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers through a series of reservoirs and dams in the river system that, in effect, control “the spigot at the state line.”

In his report, Ralph Lancaster, a Portland, Maine, lawyer who served as the special master in the case, said that because the Corps was not a party in lawsuit, it meant that a court ruling could not “assure Florida the relief it seeks.”

Is it possible for nothing to be done because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is not a party to the case?

I think they would have to adjust.