US Supreme Court agrees to hear Florida water use lawsuit

The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear Florida’s lawsuit against Georgia over the use of water in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system.

Florida, Georgia and Alabama have been fighting over water use from the river system for over 20 years, and the three states have not been able to agree on a way to share water.

The State of Florida filed suit against Georgia last October to try to reduce the amount of water Georgia is taking from the River System.

Florida wants the court to order Georgia's water withdrawals to be capped at 1992 levels and for a special master to be appointed to oversee how the waters in the river basin are divided.

This week’s Supreme Court order allows Florida’s complaint to be filed and gives Georgia 30 days to respond.

In recent years the courts have sided with Georgia over many of the water issues, which include allowing the use of the federal reservoir of Lake Lanier as a source of drinking water for Atlanta.

The Metro-Atlanta area primarily gets its water from the Chattahoochee River with withdrawals totaling 360 million gallons per day.

Georgia’s consumption is expected to nearly double to 705 million gallons per day by 2040, if Atlanta’s population and water consumption grows unchecked.

Florida believes that Georgia’s excessive consumption has brought historically-low water flows into the Bay and has caused oysters to die because of higher salinity, increased disease and predator intrusion in the Bay.

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.

Governor Rick Scott called the decision “huge news and a major victory for Florida.”

He added that “For 20 years, Florida has tried to work with Georgia, and families have continued to see their fisheries suffer from the lack of water.

The Supreme Court takes up so few cases, and their willingness to hear Florida’s demonstrates the merits of our case before the court.”





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