Editorial: Concerns give lie to 'interstate' water war sham

If nothing else good comes of a Tuesday decision by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources to periodically reduce downstream flows in the Chattahoochee River, there's this: Maybe -- finally -- after three decades, give or take a few frustrating years, we can put to rest once and for all this convenient (for some) fiction of a water war whose battle lines are defined by state borders.

Because Tuesday's skirmish was an intrastate dispute all the way -- a civil war, if you will: Georgians against Georgians, debating not how much water gets to Alabama and Florida, but how much makes it past Peachtree Creek.

Since the 1970s, Georgia water quality rules have included what some called a "footnote," setting minimum river flow at Peachtree Creek at no lower than 750 cubic feet per second. The state's position is that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, not EPD, controls flow rates on the Chattahoochee; but EPD has recommended to the Corps that it reduce the flow standard to 650 cfs during the winter.

According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, 17 speakers were on hand during the public comment portion of Tuesday's DNR meeting to object to the proposal. They didn't represent interests in Apalachicola or Dothan, but residents and stakeholders in Carroll, Coweta, Douglas and Heard counties.

One of their concerns, born of gross experience, is that less water means lower water quality. Assuming that upstream (especially Atlanta) sewage discharges, as well as urban, industrial and agricultural runoff, are more or less a constant quantity, lower flows mean less clean water to dilute and cleanse out Chattahoochee pollution.

"We have tolerated metro Atlanta's destruction of that river for years and we expect improvements, if anything, to the river," said a Carroll County commissioner. He was referring, of course, to years past when Atlanta's antique sewers regularly poured major metropolitan quantities of untreated waste into the water. (The city upgraded its sewer system, at a cost of some $2 billion, after a lawsuit by the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper.)

EPD says the Corps has occasionally dropped the flow to 650 cfs since 2008, with no damage to the river. "Nobody is talking about lowering the flow target in the summer, when it's an issue," said EPD Director Jud Turner. "We need 750, and we'll get 750."

The downstream delegation was neither reassured nor mollified. Several noted that the Corps is scheduled to release a half-century-overdue revision of its Chattahoochee River water control management plan (last updated in 1958) next month anyway, so why this decision now?

The answer, some fear -- not without 30 years of justification -- is that the state's real agenda, and primary interest, is in holding more water in Lake Lanier for consumption by metro Atlanta.

The "water war" is quite real, and always has been. This latest confrontation should get it through a few more thick heads who the combatants really are.

This story was originally published August 27, 2015 at 5:36 PM with the headline "Editorial: Concerns give lie to 'interstate' water war sham."