Florida, Alabama senators ask leaders for help in 'water wars'

BY THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

After earlier attempts failed, U.S. senators from Florida and Alabama are working on a new effort to get Congress to intervene in their states' long-running "water wars" with Georgia. Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., on Monday joined Alabama Republicans Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions in writing a letter to Senate leaders, asking for help in creating an interstate compact to allocate the water of two river systems shared with Georgia. All three states share the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, while Georgia and Alabama share the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa River Basin. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers controls the flows in both systems, and the four senators have tried several times to prevent the Corps from reallocating water to Georgia. Monday's letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., noted the senators' earlier attempts to amend the 2017 Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act to require the governors of the three states to agree on water allocations from the river systems. "For example, in the Energy and Water Development bill, we supported a provision that would have prohibited funds for the reallocation of water within the ACT and ACF basins until the Corps executed a partnering agreement between Alabama, Florida, and Georgia," they wrote to McConnell and Reid. "Such a provision would have ensured that the Corps remained neutral in the dispute, rather than continue to tip the scales in favor of Georgia." However, as a press release from Rubio's office noted, "The Georgia senators blocked the amendment from being considered." Both river systems are the subjects of litigation. Florida has sued Georgia in the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to limit Georgia's withdrawals from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint basin. A special master has been appointed to manage the case. Alabama, meanwhile, has sued the Corps over what is known as the water-control manual for the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa basin. Georgia is not a party to that lawsuit.