For more than a century, Columbus ran on water. The Chattahoochee turned our mills, cotton gins and textile factories. When the goods were finished, the river was our highway to market. Even today, in the age of FedEx and UPS, the river is still critical to our present and future economy. It still supplies our homes, businesses and factories with the water we need to grow and thrive.
The Chattahoochee is also a part of our social fabric. It’s where we play, whether casting for bass or paddling its waters. Friendships were made and romance blossomed on its banks. Songs, poems and paintings all attest to the river’s place in our lives.
Of course, communities up and down the river, from Helen to Apalachicola Bay, can lay a similar claim to the Chattahoochee. The river and its water play a central role not only in their history and economy, but also in their identities.
And, like anything that’s important and precious, people fight about it.
There are natural tensions, of course. In Columbus, we guard our supply and ask whether Atlanta’s growth and its demands can be sustained. Downstream towns, farmers and businesses ask the same question about us and also raise concerns about water for endangered species, fishing habitat and navigation.
But the main event is happening in federal court and the Governor’s Mansion. For more than 20 years, Alabama, Florida and Georgia have been locked in a legal and political struggle over the river, its water and its management. Every step forward seems to result in two steps back. Most recently, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling that might have disallowed using Lake Lanier’s water for drinking. The case now lingers as Alabama and Florida think about their next move.
Meanwhile, the Corps of Engineers, charged with managing water flow in the Chattahoochee, has done yeomen’s labor balancing the various needs throughout the region. It’s all the more admirable when you understand that they manage using estimates and formulas -- rather than hard data -- that, in some cases, are more than 50 years old.
As long as enough rain falls in north Georgia to keep the river and its reservoirs -- particularly Lake Lanier -- full or nearly full, the system works. It appears, however, that extreme drought is reemerging throughout Georgia, including across state lines into eastern Alabama and Florida’s panhandle.
While it’s too soon to know if we are facing conditions similar to 2007, that event isn’t too far back in history to forget the lessons. The drought revealed more than the lake bottoms: it showed just how much demand for water the region really has. As the region continues to grow, bringing more people, more industries and greater demands for electricity, the pressure on the river to provide more climbs.
For those of us who care about the river and all that it provides, the current challenges are frustrating. Intractable differences among the state governments, watershed management constrained by old formulas and aging tools, and the constant demands of new growth have put us in an untenable position.
A fresh start
Perhaps it’s time to look for a new solution: one that is data-driven, scientifically sound and built on consensus of all the river’s stakeholders to sustainably manage the waters that flow throughout the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system.
A new organization, comprised of 56 representatives from across the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) river basin, began exploring a different path about two years ago. To ensure broad agreement on the best approach, ACF Stakeholders brought in as its members local governments, power producers, farmers, manufacturers and conservationists from throughout region, from the north Georgia mountains to the Gulf of Mexico.
ACF Stakeholders immediately set its sights on designing a Sustainable Water Management Plan that balances economic, ecological and social values, while ensuring sustainability for current and future generations.
To put its program into place, the group has engaged two internationally recognized consultants, Black and Veatch, and Atkins to complete the first two parts of its plan.
The first, The Sustainable Water Management Project, seeks to develop a data-driven approach to managing the river basin that accounts for the needs of all stakeholder groups.
The second, In Stream Flow and Lake Level Assessment, will address the impact of water on aquatic species. Additionally, The Do Better Project will inventory the region’s best and best-used water conservation and management efforts so that they can be applied to future sustainability efforts.
In the end, these projects will result in real tools and current data to support good policy decisions for the whole region. Potentially, a more lasting impact of this effort may just be to show that a willingness to work together is a far better way to run a river.
