Water wars play background role in D.C. standoff
Monday's temporary fix in a gridlocked Congress to keep the government running at least until December (as opposed to shutting it down today) involves one issue little noticed elsewhere around the country, but of considerable importance here.
It's one of those good news/bad news things, depending on where you live relative to the Chattahoochee River. And it isn't even about the Chattahoochee -- at least not specifically.
Back in the spring Richard Shelby, Alabama's veteran senior U.S. senator, managed to get a clause into an appropriations bill that would prevent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from changing water allocation in the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa rivers basin while the governors of Alabama and Georgia are trying to work out agreements over water usage.
Meanwhile, Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., has taken issue with Shelby's "egregious language" and has been trying to get it taken out. He got his wish in the House version of energy and water appropriations, which does not include that condition.
Isakson said he supports the continuing resolution even though it does not include language to defund Planned Parenthood -- the current "hot button" of choice on Capitol Hill -- because of the importance of the water issue: "I can understand people who want to make a political point, and that's all well and good, but I don't want Atlanta to run dry "
Give the senator credit for not being coy about what Georgia's real agenda for water allocation is, and has always been.
Shelby expressed no frustration at the House version of the bill. Because the continuing resolution is just a stopgap measure, his office noted in a statement, "Senator Shelby did not request, nor was he expecting, the 'water wars' language from the Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations bill to be included. However, Senator Shelby will continue to fight to ensure that the committee-approved language is incorporated in any final appropriations measure that is ultimately enacted."
The question of water allocation in the ACT basin -- which, like the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint system, originates in Georgia and flows across state lines -- is of course crucial to Chattahoochee stakeholders as well. Perhaps even more so, because of the central role of Lake Lanier, a Corps-managed impoundment, in balancing metro Atlanta's water demands with the needs not just of Alabama and Florida, but also of Georgia communities downriver from the capital.
As the largest of those downstream stakeholders, Columbus probably would have benefitted if Shelby's provision had prevailed. But the Alabama senator is right in noting that a resolution to keep the government funded another two months would not have resolved a 30-year dispute.
In any case, it's unlikely the Corps will have finished updating its water allocation plan, which was last revised in the 1950s, before the next shutdown "deadline" of Dec. 11
This story was originally published September 30, 2015 at 4:40 PM with the headline "Water wars play background role in D.C. standoff."