US Supreme Court to hear water wars argument on January 8th

The US Supreme Court announced this week that it will hear arguments on January the 8th 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 this week that it will hear arguments in the case on January the 8^th.

It does not have to accept the special master's recommendation.

http://live.oysterradio.com/