Georgia Loses A Big One In Water Battle With Florida, Alabama

We've previously reported on the "water war" between Georgia, on the one hand, and Florida and Alabama on the other. (See "Will Florida v. Georgia Water Fight Become Political?")

The battle centers on control of the water in the massive Lake Lanier reservoir, north of Atlanta, which was built by the federal government to provide hydroelectric electricity to the region. Lake Lanier flows into the Apalachicola River, which in turn provides the water for needed for cooling Alabama's largest nuclear reactor, and then flows on southward through Florida, where it is vital to the health of the fish, wildlife and shellfish of Apalachicola Bay.

The reason for the fighting is that Lake Lanier has been shrinking, in large part due to a sustained drought in the Southeast, and in no small part because of the increased demands for drinking water in Atlanta's burgeoning 'burbs.

Georgia has tried to grab more of Lanier's water for itself, under the banner "people before animals." The Bush administration has tried to mediate the dispute, but with little success.

Georgia won an early round in court, obtaining a ruling that the Army Corps of Engineers could allocate greater water rights to the state, at the expense of Alabama and Florida. Yesterday, however, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals--which encompasses all three states--reversed that ruling, holding that Congress would have to approve of such a change. The case could be headed to the Supreme Court, but the 11th Circuit's ruling is likely to stand.

In any event, Georgia did not deserve to win this one. What Georgia wants is for the federal government to solve a state and local problem: to wit, Atlanta and its environs have, for years now, failed to plan for the future by funding their own reservoirs. Instead, they just decided that Lake Lanier would last forever--bad water planning.

Now that the chickens have come home to roost in the inevitable drought, Georgians prefer to simply take water from their neighbors, rather than own up to their profligacy. Indeed, water restrictions in north Georgia are still lax and widely ignored.

Georgia is one of the reddest states in the Union, represented by anti-tax social conservatives in Congress. Georgians remind us of San Diegans, who twice voted against funds for more fire stations despite wide acknowledgement that the city was highly vulnerable to wildfires, and then turned to the federal government for help.

Funny how all those anti-tax people are the first to ask for federal help when their own failure to plan and pay for services goes awry.

Inevitably, if the drought goes on much longer, the federal government will have to provide emergency assistance to Georgia. In the long run, however, Georgians need to take care of themselves, by planning and INVESTING in an adequate water infrastructure for future growth.