Old hand at species disputes grabs tiller in Southeast water war
Posted on October 30th, 2007By Daniel Cusick
Greenwire: ATLANTA — When Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue accused the federal government of draining metro Atlanta’s reservoir to provide water for the benefit of endangered mussels and fish, he echoed the complaint six years ago of another Republican governor about an imperilled species.
Then-Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne — who is now Interior secretary — took a stand against the federal reintroduction of grizzly bears into a wilderness area on the Idaho-Montana line, saying it would expose people to “a flesh-eating, antisocial animal.
“Folks, this could be the first land management action in history to result in sure death and injury of citizens,” Kempthorne said in his 2001 State of the State Address. “We will challenge this blatant confrontation to our state sovereignty in federal court.”
The tactic worked. Within months, Kempthorne’s predecessor at Interior, Gale Norton, retreated from the Fish and Wildlife Service-endorsed grizzly reintroduction, saying it could not proceed without state support.
Kempthorne is being asked to resolve another dispute with a similar script. This time, the species being blamed for threatening human health and safety are mussels and fish in Florida’s Apalachicola River.
Kempthorne — who is scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss the Southeast water crisis with the governors of Georgia, Alabama and Florida — will represent the agency he once railed against, causing some to wonder whether he will consider the full implications of the Southeast’s worst drought in a century, or if he will re-emerge as the states’ rights champion and critic of the Endangered Species Act.
“I think we’re having the wrong debate if we’re still talking about mussels versus humans,” said Gil Rogers, an Atlanta-based attorney who specializes in water policy for the Southern Environmental Law Center.
The government’s handling of the dispute here could have important implications for the Endangered Species Act and water rights in one of the nation’s most biologically diverse regions.
Growing water demands
The Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin — originating in the north Georgia mountains and stretching for hundreds of miles to Florida’s Apalachicola Bay — supports myriad plant and animal species found nowhere else.
But the basin is gravely threatened, foremost by three decades of unfettered growth in metro Atlanta. The 10-county region now has more than 4 million residents, with an average 86,000 people arriving every year, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission.
The real estate boom adds thousands more water taps a year, with most of the new withdrawals coming from Lake Lanier, an impoundment of the Chattahoochee that sprawls more than 38,000 acres. Built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1958, the lake was designed to provide flood control and hydropower, but it has since become a vital resource for metro Atlanta. Today it provides drinking water to 55 percent of the state.
Now mired in what officials are calling the worst drought in the Southeast’s history, Perdue and other Georgia officials are pressuring the corps to suspend daily water releases from Lake Lanier, a move that would essentially deprive downstream users, including endangered species, of billions of gallons of water.
Among those who would lose water under Georgia’s proposal are industrial and municipal water users in Alabama, which shares a 160-mile border with Georgia along the Chattahoochee, and both industry and commercial fishing interests in Florida, where the river is renamed the Apalachicola before discharging into the shellfish-rich Apalachicola Bay.
Yet despite the inherent complexities and multiple water users who would be affected by Georgia’s demand for reduced lake flows, Perdue has continued to cast the issue in simple terms: People versus endangered species. He is hoping that message will resonate in Washington, where officials will try to broker a compromise this week.
Among those expected to meet for talks with senior Bush administration officials are Perdue, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (R) and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R). Riley and Crist have both formally opposed Georgia’s request to suspend releases from Lake Lanier in letters to President Bush.
Last week, standing alongside Perdue in the Georgia capitol, Kempthorne spoke of striking a balance between water needs and identifying “the larger view of what’s important to the governors of Georgia, Alabama and Florida.”
“Having come from the West, having been a governor, I’ve dealt with these water issues for years,” Kempthorne said. “Again, [there are] competing interests, where some people would try to say, ‘Well, this particular fish versus [that one].’
“Well, I don’t think they have to be mutually exclusive,” Kempthorne added. “You can find balance so you can accomplish a variety of needs that are here. But I affirm that the well-being of the citizens here in Georgia, and in Alabama and Florida, are very important.”
Broader debate
Steve Gieseler, an attorney who heads the Florida office of the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, said last week that any policy giving endangered species equal footing with human water needs during a drought would be an abdication of federal responsibility.
“This case really demonstrates how out of whack the regulatory regime has become under ESA, and some balance really needs to be restored there,” Gieseler said.
But others predict the regional water dispute will boil down to simple electoral math.
“In the final analysis, Florida gets what Florida wants,” said Kieran Suckling, founder and policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity, which advocates for endangered species protection.
And despite Perdue’s effort to cast the issue as one of people versus endangered species, Suckling said Georgia will ultimately lose by failing to consider the broader stakes, which are about competing human priorities.
“This issue is not about ESA,” he said. “This is about a water war between Florida and Georgia,” where the only viable outcome is a compact between the states about how to divide up a finite amount of water.
Others say Perdue’s attempts to win political points by pitting Georgia citizens against endangered mussels could backfire. While Georgia remains a decidedly conservative state, opinion polls show all voters, regardless of party affiliation, are moving toward greater environmental awareness and a fuller understanding of ecological systems.
“In many ways, public attitudes are ahead of the politicians,” said Bob Irvin, senior vice president of conservation programs for Defenders of Wildlife. “We’re starting to see a change in attitude, and it is especially evident in the next generation” of voters.