The
US Supreme Court announced this week that it will hear arguments this
term in the ongoing water war between Florida and Georgia.
The
two states as well as Alabama have been fighting for over two decades
over how water in the Apalachicola Chattahoochee Flint River system
should be shared.
The
State of Florida filed suit in the US Supreme Court in 2014 to try to
reduce the amount of water Georgia is taking from the River System.
Florida
believes that Georgia’s water consumption has brought
historically-low water flows into the Apalachicola Bay and has caused
oysters to die because of higher salinity, increased disease and
predator intrusion.
Until
recently, Apalachicola Bay accounted for approximately 10 percent of
the nation’s Eastern oyster supply.
The
oyster industry in Apalachicola collapsed in 2012 leading to a
Commercial Fisheries Disaster Declaration from the U.S. Department of
Commerce in 2013.
So
far the case before the supreme court has not been going in Florida's
favor.
Special
Master Ralph Lancaster was named by the Supreme Court to
hear the case – he heard arguments last year and issued a 137 page
report recommending that the supreme court deny Florida's request for
relief.
Lancaster
said Florida did not prove that imposing a cap on Georgia's water use
“would provide a material benefit to Florida.”
Lancaster
said he does believe the 2012 collapse of the Apalachicola Bay oyster
industry was caused by decreased flows from the river and not from
mismanagement as Georgia argued.
He
also pointed to Georgia's “largely unrestrained”agricultural
consumption of water as a major factor on the basin water flow.
The
number of acres Georgia farmers have under irrigation has soared from
75,000 acres in 1970 to more than 825,000 today.
The
Supreme Court said it will hear the case sometime this term – it
did now say when.
The
court’s current term began last week and will extend into next
summer.
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