On November 30, 2016 Dan Chapman and Greg Bluestein both of the Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote a story titled “Ga. Farmer’s water use is key issue”. \u00a0The story is copied below:<\/p>\n
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PORTLAND, MAINE \u2014 South Georgia farmers, not metro Atlanta lawn-lovers, have been sitting squarely in the legal cross hairs of Florida attorneys over the past month during the \u201cwater war\u201d trial expected to conclude this week in this cold and rainy seaport town.<\/p>\n
Tuesday, Gov. Nathan Deal unexpectedly jumped into the middle of the legal fray to defend Georgia\u2019s water conservation efforts and warn that court-imposed water reductions would be a \u201cdisaster for agriculture.\u201d The governor\u2019s unsolicited comments were even more surprising given the court\u2019s admonition to Georgia and Florida negotiators to keep confidential their talks aimed at resolving the 27-year-old legal battle between the states.<\/p>\n
Indeed, Ralph Lancaster Jr., who was appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court as a special master to resolve the water war, appeared taken aback late Tuesday morning when he asked the lawyers, scientists, environmentalists and others gathered in a bankruptcy court about Deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you know what he\u2019s talking about?\u201d Lancaster said aloud. \u201cJust curious.\u201d<\/p>\n
The trial entered its fifth week Tuesday with Florida, yet again, trying to tear apart Georgia witnesses defending the state\u2019s conservation and farming practices. It is expected to end this week, whereupon the master will solicit final written arguments from Georgia and Florida before making his decision sometime next month. The nation\u2019s highest court would then consider Lancaster\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
Florida sued Georgia in 2013 claiming the upstream state hoards water from the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers, and adjoining aquifers, to the economic and ecological detriment of the Apalachicola River and bay.<\/p>\n
The Sunshine State wants the special master to equitably distribute the water by capping overall water use in Georgia and guaranteeing a healthy flow of river at the Florida line at all times.<\/p>\n
The stakes are huge for Georgia: A consumption cap could sharply curtail metro Atlanta\u2019s future development. And southwest Georgia farmers might lose some access to the underground aquifers that water their corn, cotton and peanuts.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s lawsuit cited \u201cmassive\u201d withdrawals of groundwater by the farmers during the last bad Georgia drought, which ended in 2012. A Georgia official, in a pretrial filing, said \u201cthere is no doubt that we need a viable management tool to deal with drought in the Flint River Basin.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dan Tonsmeire, the Apalachicola Riverkeeper, said after trial Tuesday that \u201cuntil Georgia gives up on the idea that upstream consumptive use has little to no impact on downstream flows, this fight will never end and the opportunities for resolution will be missed.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Sorab Panday, a hydrological expert testifying on behalf of Georgia, said groundwater pumping by farmers has only a \u201cnegligible\u201d impact on stream flows across South Georgia and, therefore, isn\u2019t to blame for the paucity of water reaching Florida.<\/p>\n
During the 2012 drought, though, Georgia imposed a moratorium on wells tapping the Flint and the underlying Floridan aquifer. Ever-resourceful farmers just dug deeper wells to tap into other aquifers.<\/p>\n
Clearly cognizant of the targeted farmers, while also bolstering an economically and politically powerful Georgia lobby, Deal weighed in Tuesday on the trial. In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the governor said farmers \u2014 not attorneys or judges \u2014 should be allowed to make planting decisions \u201con their own, based on market prices for the commodities they produce.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should not have an artificial process to grow their crops,\u201d the governor said.<\/p>\n
Deal also defended the state\u2019s conservation efforts, particularly metro Atlanta\u2019s 10 percent reduction in water usage over the past decade when the population soared by 1 million people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel we have a very strong case,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully, the special master will give due attention to the fact that we\u2019ve not just ignored the issue. We\u2019ve taken proactive steps.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deal has largely avoided discussing the water war in public ever since Lancaster, in April 2015, granted both states a \u201cconfidentiality order\u201d to keep quiet efforts to mediate the dispute. Lancaster further admonished governors and their attorneys to stop talking to reporters. Deal himself said in April that he was under a gag order due to the litigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely, there are risks in what the governor is saying, but the special master has already warned that Georgia will not completely get its way in the trial,\u201d said Ryan Rowberry, a Georgia State University professor who worked on behalf of Florida in a previous water war skirmish. \u201cSo it\u2019s a political move to get out in front of whatever decision is made and to assure one of the largest business interests in Georgia that he\u2019s got their back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deal, who noted that the trial has already trod agricultural ground, said he was therefore free to discuss some of the case\u2019s details.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve spent $24 million in legal expenses (this year) to fight this issue and this case,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a significant investment in taxpayer money. And we\u2019ve done so because I realize the significant consequences that could come from this.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On November 30, 2016 Dan Chapman and Greg Bluestein both of the Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote a story titled “Ga. Farmer’s water use is key issue”. \u00a0The story is copied\u00a0here in case you have not seen the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-water-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions\/287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}