In the latest salvo in a long-running two-state water war, Florida filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court that forecasts environmental and economic doom unless the court issues a decree capping Georgia’s Apalachicola River water consumption.
The 27-page brief urges the high court to issue an order mandating that fresh water from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system be shared equitably by the two states. Currently, so much of the water is siphoned off for agricultural uses in Georgia and Atlanta residents that Apalachicola Bay in the Florida Panhandle is facing the destruction of its oyster fishery, the brief filed on July 27 says..
“In the end, denying Florida relief not only would spell doom for Apalachicola, it would set the bar so high for an equitable apportionment that it would effectively invite states to raid water as it passes through their borders,” the brief states.
Sandra Brooke, a principal investigator for the Apalachicola Bay System Initiative and a Florida State University researcher, said the problems that have faced the bay’s ecosystem are multifaceted, culminating in the crash of the oyster population in 2012.
“It’s a number of contributing factors that all sort of collided together, and the population just tipped,” Brooke told the Florida Record.
The factors include not just the river water flowing into the bay but local rainfall, possible instances of over-harvesting, increased predation due to rising salinity and habitat loss, she said.
Oysters form their own habitat by creating the shells which form reefs in the bay. Unless oyster shells are returned to the reefs after they’re caught, the oysters’ environment could end up in a downward spiral, according to Brooke.
“They’re at a crisis state now where they’ve got to be left alone for a while to allow them to slowly build up to a point where the population can stand some harvesting again,” she said.
Georgia currently allows rampant waste and inefficiency in its agricultural industry even as the city of Atlanta’s water needs rise, the state of Florida’s legal brief says. The resulting situation in Apalachicola Bay has become so critical that last month the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission halted wild oyster harvesting in the bay for five years.
“The closing of the oyster fishery is not a cause for celebration,” Brooke said. “It’s a necessary unfortunate situation.”
A special master investigating the water issues for the high court sided with Georgia’s position last year, but Brooke said that even if Florida won, it’s unlikely the water floodgates would immediately open up.
A more realistic option would be better water management to allow fresh water to enter the bay in the spring to better protect young oysters from predators once the oyster population is restored, she said.
It’s not likely that Atlanta and Georgia’s agriculture industry will be able to reduce their water consumption significantly in the future, according to Brooke.