12 ms·

Parched oystermen, farmers face off in Supreme Court water war

33 points by cwwc 6y ago

peterwoerner 6y ago
A Georgia lawmakers also sued Tennessee to move the state border so that they could siphon water from the Tennessee river: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/01/tennessee-georgia-water-border-dispute/2044429/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/01/tennes... Georgia and Atlanta have unsustainable growth which their natural resources can't support and are trying to pass off the externalities onto their neighbors. I am biased as a former resident of both Tennessee and Florida.
- mc32 6y ago
  Georgia? They get enough rain. Seems to me they need to learn about water conservation.
  - bpodgursky 6y ago
    Yeah, if Las Vegas can figure out how to make do with the Colorado, I'm pretty sure Atlanta will be ok.
    - Jtsummers 6y ago
      Las Vegas got to take advantage of an early 20th century hydroelectric dam project. They also had frequent water restrictions when I lived there in the 90s, and the population has only grown so I imagine it isn't much improved now. Atlanta's artificial lakes/reservoirs are from a similar time, new ones aren't being made fast enough if at all, and the population continues to grow. Dealing with multiple jurisdictions (the region known as Atlanta encompasses the city of Atlanta, many other cities, and is spread across several counties) further complicates the issue when it comes to funding and determining responsibility. You could argue the state of GA should step in. However, there's a huge political chasm between the metro Atlanta area and most of the rest of the state (A "fuck those city slickers" attitude is very common in rural Georgia and the smaller cities, Atlantans aren't viewed as Georgians given how many are transplants). The water in the Atlanta region also needs to travel down river to many other areas (and other states) in order to sustain those regions.
      - specialist 6y ago
        I was last in Las Vegas 10+ years ago. The shrinking of Lake Mead, the reservoir made by the Hoover Dam, was alarming back then. I'm afraid to even check it's current status. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mead#Drought_and_water_usage_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mead#Drought_and_water_us...
        cobookman 6y ago
        Cheap solar in the west (California, Arizona, Nevada) coupled with desalination plants. We'll be fine for *urban/residential* water needs for the foreseeable future.
        mc32 6y ago
        Where is the briny/salty water in ariz/nev? Cal, yes, lots.
        cobookman 6y ago
        Not that crazy to have a pipeline from California to Ariz/Nev. With Ariz/Nev supply Cali with their excess solar to the desal plants.
        yoloswagins 6y ago
        The current plan is to pay for a plant in Mexico in exchange for them to give up their share of water from the Colorado River Compact.
      - hinkley 6y ago
        It's just a One Major Metropolis versus rural thing. Chicago is Chicago, not Illinois. Watch two Illinoisans try to sort out they're "From Illinois" but one's from anywhere but a Chicago exurb, and they'll say, "Oh, you're from Chicago," not, "cool." More like, "Yeah you're technically in Illinois ... You're in the corner by the weird lake and you're way too close to Wisconsin and Indiana for comfort anyway."
    - brudgers 6y ago
      The Colorado has almost 250,000 square miles of basin. The Chattahoochee less than 9000. Atlanta metro is about six million, Las Vegas metro about 2.5. Politically, the Colorado is a different animal. Mexico is downstream and historically has just had to lump it when the river runs dry. Which it has as the US built dams. And today, it has to make do with just a remaining 5% of the historical wetlands where the Colorado flows into the Sea of Cortez.
  - Mountain_Skies 6y ago
    They need more reservoirs. Georgia gets plenty of rain but it's very unevenly distributed over the years. Lake Lanier was a good start and some of the counties have built lots of tiny reservoirs but if the state wants that region to continue to grow, they need to get serious about creating a couple of large reservoirs. Conservation is good but is only one piece of the solution and not one that is mutually exclusive with the temporal rain distribution issue.
- Mountain_Skies 6y ago
  Well, the border actually is in the wrong place so he had a point but given how little of the river would have been in Georgia under the revised border, they still wouldn't have much of an argument for being entitled to much of the waterflow.
NortySpock 6y ago
Georgia has coast access and plenty of sun, right? Sounds like a problem a desalination plant and a pipeline would solve :) I'm always down for a good mega-engineering project.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Using fresh water is far cheaper than any desalination scheme we have so far. I'm surprised they have issues getting enough fresh water without a river though, but I'm don't care to look into why.
  - csharptwdec19 6y ago
    On the other hand, given the direction everything else in the world is going, maybe it would be better to build a desalination plant NOW and before the problem gets critical... There's only so much fresh water you can take from a natural source before you have an impact on wildlife order(s) of magnitude greater than what we've already done.
- Arrath 6y ago
  That was my thought in response to the proposed pipeline to take water from the Columbia river all the way down to California.
  - SllX 6y ago
    Speaking as a Californian, don’t let that crap happen. California can take care of itself, we just have a crap government.
    - pkaye 6y ago
      Most of California water consumption is agriculture. Seems like we just need to dial back agriculture a bit in California if we are hurting for water.
      - 6y ago
specialist 6y ago
Can anyone recommend an authoritative blog, explainer, other covering water rights in the USA? I volunteered at an Audubon project trying to save the pacific salmon. The water rights issues break my brain. Farmers, timber, fisheries, native peoples, power, flood control, sanitation, household use, commerce, industry, etc. I know nothing about this GA vs FL (vs TN) fight. I've heard our legal context in The West is it's own crazy. For instance, IIRC, we have "use it or lose it", so Idaho potato farmers end up growing too many potatoes to avoid risking losing their water rights. Insane, right? I'd love to follow the thought leaders on water stuff. Like maybe create a market for water, so those Idaho farmers could sell / rent their water to others interests. I'd love for the Freedom Markets™ partisans to actually propose market designs and reforms that'd address these kinds of challenges. Similarly, I'd love for the treehuggers to get smart about using markets to more effectively and efficiently allocate scarce resources; a constructive alternative to the never-ending legal battles. After carbon, water will certainly be one of our more pressing policy challenges, for a long while to come. Please set me straight, point me in the right direction.
- anonAndOn 6y ago
  It's been a long time since I looked into it but water rights are controlled at the individual state level so 50 different takes on who owns what and how... unless you're talking about navigable waterways, which brings in federal jurisdiction, eg this lawsuit.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - beerandt 6y ago
    No- even if the case happens to be about a federal jurisdictional matter (navigable waterway, or waters of the US, or USCOE jurisdictional wetlands, or direct government ownership/agency of included or adjacent property), this one is covered by original jurisdiction to SCOTUS, since both parties are state governments.
- donavanm 6y ago
  Its dated but _Cadillac Desert_ is a seminal work. Provides excellent background and context for water rights/management/infrastructure in the US in general and the west in particular. I haven't been paying attention to the space for 15 years so no suggestions on current events.

33 points by cwwc 6y ago

A Georgia lawmakers also sued Tennessee to move the state border so that they could siphon water from the Tennessee river: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/01/tennessee-georgia-water-border-dispute/2044429/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/01/tennes... Georgia and Atlanta have unsustainable growth which their natural resources can't support and are trying to pass off the externalities onto their neighbors. I am biased as a former resident of both Tennessee and Florida.

mc32 6y ago
Georgia? They get enough rain. Seems to me they need to learn about water conservation.
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  Yeah, if Las Vegas can figure out how to make do with the Colorado, I'm pretty sure Atlanta will be ok.
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    Las Vegas got to take advantage of an early 20th century hydroelectric dam project. They also had frequent water restrictions when I lived there in the 90s, and the population has only grown so I imagine it isn't much improved now. Atlanta's artificial lakes/reservoirs are from a similar time, new ones aren't being made fast enough if at all, and the population continues to grow. Dealing with multiple jurisdictions (the region known as Atlanta encompasses the city of Atlanta, many other cities, and is spread across several counties) further complicates the issue when it comes to funding and determining responsibility. You could argue the state of GA should step in. However, there's a huge political chasm between the metro Atlanta area and most of the rest of the state (A "fuck those city slickers" attitude is very common in rural Georgia and the smaller cities, Atlantans aren't viewed as Georgians given how many are transplants). The water in the Atlanta region also needs to travel down river to many other areas (and other states) in order to sustain those regions.
    - specialist 6y ago
      I was last in Las Vegas 10+ years ago. The shrinking of Lake Mead, the reservoir made by the Hoover Dam, was alarming back then. I'm afraid to even check it's current status. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mead#Drought_and_water_usage_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mead#Drought_and_water_us...
      - cobookman 6y ago
        Cheap solar in the west (California, Arizona, Nevada) coupled with desalination plants. We'll be fine for *urban/residential* water needs for the foreseeable future.
        mc32 6y ago
        Where is the briny/salty water in ariz/nev? Cal, yes, lots.
        cobookman 6y ago
        Not that crazy to have a pipeline from California to Ariz/Nev. With Ariz/Nev supply Cali with their excess solar to the desal plants.
        yoloswagins 6y ago
        The current plan is to pay for a plant in Mexico in exchange for them to give up their share of water from the Colorado River Compact.
    - hinkley 6y ago
      It's just a One Major Metropolis versus rural thing. Chicago is Chicago, not Illinois. Watch two Illinoisans try to sort out they're "From Illinois" but one's from anywhere but a Chicago exurb, and they'll say, "Oh, you're from Chicago," not, "cool." More like, "Yeah you're technically in Illinois ... You're in the corner by the weird lake and you're way too close to Wisconsin and Indiana for comfort anyway."
  - brudgers 6y ago
    The Colorado has almost 250,000 square miles of basin. The Chattahoochee less than 9000. Atlanta metro is about six million, Las Vegas metro about 2.5. Politically, the Colorado is a different animal. Mexico is downstream and historically has just had to lump it when the river runs dry. Which it has as the US built dams. And today, it has to make do with just a remaining 5% of the historical wetlands where the Colorado flows into the Sea of Cortez.
- Mountain_Skies 6y ago
  They need more reservoirs. Georgia gets plenty of rain but it's very unevenly distributed over the years. Lake Lanier was a good start and some of the counties have built lots of tiny reservoirs but if the state wants that region to continue to grow, they need to get serious about creating a couple of large reservoirs. Conservation is good but is only one piece of the solution and not one that is mutually exclusive with the temporal rain distribution issue.
Mountain_Skies 6y ago
Well, the border actually is in the wrong place so he had a point but given how little of the river would have been in Georgia under the revised border, they still wouldn't have much of an argument for being entitled to much of the waterflow.

NortySpock 6y ago

Georgia has coast access and plenty of sun, right? Sounds like a problem a desalination plant and a pipeline would solve :) I'm always down for a good mega-engineering project.

bluGill 6y ago
Using fresh water is far cheaper than any desalination scheme we have so far. I'm surprised they have issues getting enough fresh water without a river though, but I'm don't care to look into why.
- csharptwdec19 6y ago
  On the other hand, given the direction everything else in the world is going, maybe it would be better to build a desalination plant NOW and before the problem gets critical... There's only so much fresh water you can take from a natural source before you have an impact on wildlife order(s) of magnitude greater than what we've already done.
Arrath 6y ago
That was my thought in response to the proposed pipeline to take water from the Columbia river all the way down to California.
- SllX 6y ago
  Speaking as a Californian, don’t let that crap happen. California can take care of itself, we just have a crap government.
  - pkaye 6y ago
    Most of California water consumption is agriculture. Seems like we just need to dial back agriculture a bit in California if we are hurting for water.
    - 6y ago

specialist 6y ago

Can anyone recommend an authoritative blog, explainer, other covering water rights in the USA? I volunteered at an Audubon project trying to save the pacific salmon. The water rights issues break my brain. Farmers, timber, fisheries, native peoples, power, flood control, sanitation, household use, commerce, industry, etc. I know nothing about this GA vs FL (vs TN) fight. I've heard our legal context in The West is it's own crazy. For instance, IIRC, we have "use it or lose it", so Idaho potato farmers end up growing too many potatoes to avoid risking losing their water rights. Insane, right? I'd love to follow the thought leaders on water stuff. Like maybe create a market for water, so those Idaho farmers could sell / rent their water to others interests. I'd love for the Freedom Markets™ partisans to actually propose market designs and reforms that'd address these kinds of challenges. Similarly, I'd love for the treehuggers to get smart about using markets to more effectively and efficiently allocate scarce resources; a constructive alternative to the never-ending legal battles. After carbon, water will certainly be one of our more pressing policy challenges, for a long while to come. Please set me straight, point me in the right direction.

anonAndOn 6y ago
It's been a long time since I looked into it but water rights are controlled at the individual state level so 50 different takes on who owns what and how... unless you're talking about navigable waterways, which brings in federal jurisdiction, eg this lawsuit.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- beerandt 6y ago
  No- even if the case happens to be about a federal jurisdictional matter (navigable waterway, or waters of the US, or USCOE jurisdictional wetlands, or direct government ownership/agency of included or adjacent property), this one is covered by original jurisdiction to SCOTUS, since both parties are state governments.
donavanm 6y ago
Its dated but _Cadillac Desert_ is a seminal work. Provides excellent background and context for water rights/management/infrastructure in the US in general and the west in particular. I haven't been paying attention to the space for 15 years so no suggestions on current events.