One thing is certain from the confusing signals being sent in Georgia’s attempt to wrest water from three of its neighboring states: Negotiation is not a strength of the Peach State. The Carter Center notwithstanding, the word “diplomacy” appears to have been omitted.
When Democratic Gov. Jimmy Carter was unable to move the boundary between Tennessee and Georgia in 1971, the water zealots waited 37 years until a Republican administration emerged to take another stab at erasing more than 200 years of territorial history.
It may be surprising that a free-enterprise band of Republicans wants to rely on the bureaucracy and the court system to win something that has not been available since 1818.
This may be but another example of the GOP abandoning principles for personal gain. Perhaps the tax-and-spend Kool-Aid that intoxicated Republicans in Washington was piped into the remaining drinking water in Georgia.
Georgia has a history of wanting more instead of conserving with less.
For more than 30 years, Georgia has battled Alabama and Florida to restrict the flow of the federal reservoir on the Chattahoochee River.
The U.S. Court of Appeals blocked an agreement hammered out between the Corps of Engineers and Georgia to siphon off water from Lake Lanier for Atlanta.
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said the court ruling “invalidates the massive water grab that Georgia tried to pull off,” according to a report by the Environment News Service. “It establishes that the decades-old practice of Atlanta taking more and more water from the federal reservoirs in the Coosa and Chattahoochee Rivers without any legal authority to do so will not stand.”
The Corps of Engineers, Alabama, Florida and Georgia have been battling since the 1990s over water, but the three states have tangled since the 1970s.
The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce recently outlined the rationale for Atlanta’s water grab. As you read these points, focus on the action of the Georgia General Assembly and the Perdue administration to move the boundary between Georgia and Tennessee 1.1 miles to gain access to water from the Tennessee River.
“The ACF (including Lake Lanier) provides water for approximately 60% of Georgia’s population and about 1/3 of Georgia’s irrigated agriculture. The ACF provides water for less than 1% of Florida’s population and about 8% of Alabama’s population (90% of the ACF is in Georgia.)” The ACF is the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin.
The chamber claims that litigation “threatens the security of Georgia’s present and future water supply and our ability to plan for and to accommodate future growth.”
The chamber position paper does not mention conservation or growth restrictions that might curb the water needs of Atlanta.
Part of the 30-plus-year water war that Georgia has waged with Alabama and Florida to preserve the unfettered growth of Atlanta appears to be encroaching on the boundary rights of Tennessee.
A prudent approach that acknowledges the need to reduce water consumption might be more acceptable to those who see nothing coming from Georgia except a desire to infringe on the resources of others.
