Politics

States reach water deal

Florida, Alabama and Georgia move toward ending a 17-year fight over shared rivers.

By CRAIG PITTMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published December 18, 2007

An ongoing water war has intensified by this year's crippling drought across the Southeast, it has pitted Atlanta's burgeoning $5-billion economy against Florida's $200-million seafood industry.
	[AP Photo/John Bazemore]

ADVERTISEMENT [AP Photo/John Bazemore] Florida, Alabama and Georgia have fought for more than 17 years over the water flowing in the Chattahoochee, Apalachicola and Flint rivers. Urban Atlanta uses the water flowing out of Lake Lanier to supply its sprawling growth, while Alabama uses it to cool a nuclear plant in Dothan that supplies power to most of the state.

TALLAHASSEE - After five hours of "brutally candid" negotiations, the governors of Florida, Georgia and Alabama struck a tentative deal Monday in a 17-year battle over shared rivers.

They agreed, at least temporarily, to shelve a plan by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to bolster Atlanta's water supply by reducing the flow to Florida.

And instead of suing each other, the three states will send teams of river experts to Washington in January to hash out a new plan for sharing water. The plan should be complete by February and approved by federal officials by March 15.

A burst of rain in the past two days kept water flowing at a level that all three states could use, which helped ease the way to an agreement, said Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

"The progress we have made today has been enormous," Crist said in an afternoon news conference outside the Governor's Mansion that drew reporters from all three states.

"I don't think I've ever been in a more productive meeting," agreed Alabama Gov. Bob Riley after the talks with Crist, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gen. Robert Van Antwerp.

Among the gaggle of reporters shouting questions was a quiet man, David McLain of the Apalachicola Bay Riverkeeper, a nonprofit group that advocates for preserving and reviving the river. McLain, with credentials that identified him as working for WOYS-FM "Oyster Radio" in Apalachicola, liked what he heard from Crist.

The ongoing water war, intensified by this year's crippling drought across the Southeast, has pitted Atlanta's burgeoning $5-billion economy against Florida's $200-million seafood industry. So far the seafood industry has been losing, McLain said.

"The flood plain is drying up," he said, injuring not only the shrimp and oyster populations but also drying out the roots of the tupelo trees that are essential to North Florida's tupelo honey crop.

So the corps' proposal to cut back the flow even further "was like a sword hanging over the Apalachicola Bay oystermen's heads," McLain said. Stopping that cutback, even temporarily, is good news, he said.

Florida, Alabama and Georgia have fought for more than 17 years over the water flowing in the Chattahoochee, Apalachicola and Flint rivers. Urban Atlanta uses that water flowing out of Lake Lanier to supply its sprawling growth, while Alabama uses it to cool a nuclear plant in Dothan that supplies power to most of the state.

Further complicating matters: The water flowing into the Apalachicola also affects several endangered species, including the gulf sturgeon and such colorfully named mussels as the fat threeridge and the purple bankclimber. That means the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has to approve any man-made changes in the river flow.

A Dec. 5 letter from Florida's top environmental regulator to federal wildlife officials about the potential river flow reduction included a photo "depicting a fresh-dead 7.5-inch purple bankclimber." The letter documented a huge drop in the oyster catch, too.

"All told, unless the bay receives significant freshwater inputs this spring, Florida fears a collapse of the seafood industry in Apalachicola," Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Mike Sole warned in the letter.

But Atlanta is in a tight spot too, after years of failing to conserve water or build reservoirs. In November, joining more than 100 of the faithful in downtown Atlanta, Gov. Perdue tried to "pray up a storm."

"Oh father, we acknowledge our wastefulness," Perdue said then.

Yet in early December, authorities said there was less than four months of available water left in Lake Lanier, leading Georgia officials to demand that the corps cut back the flow out of the lake even further. The demand prompted talk of lawsuits from the other states.

Kempthorne - dispatched by President Bush to hammer out a deal among the three Republican governors - said part of the problem was that the three states were looking at the same data on the river flows but getting what he called "different interpretations by different states." As a result they were "dealing with perceptions and misperceptions."

Trying to end a fight by March that's been going on for so long might seem impossible, but Sole called it "a good start." He said the talks among the three states will have to include proposals for conserving water, something Floridians know about first-hand - and that Perdue, until recently, resisted.

Although Riley called the discussions among the governors "brutally candid," and Perdue called them "candid and frank and productive," none of the governors would detail exactly what issues still separate them. Instead they were content to declare a truce and leave the details to their staffs. That was good enough for Kempthorne.

"This was real," he said. "This was meaningful."

Earlier in the day, Kempthorne had told the three governors that his department worked out an agreement last week with seven Western states to conserve and share scarce Colorado River water, ending a long, divisive battle.

"We should be able to come to an accord," Crist said.

Information from the Associated Press, the Miami Herald and the Los Angeles Times was used in this report.

[Last modified December 17, 2007, 23:06:47]