Alabama, Florida lawmakers urge Congress to act on ailing Apalachicola river basin
U.S. Sens. Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby joined with Florida counterparts Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson urged a Senate budget panel to take on what they called “ongoing mismanagement” of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) and Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa (ACT) River Basins on the part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday. The senators asked the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development to include language related to the ACF in the Fiscal Year 2016-2017 budget in a letter addressed to the committee. The document already includes language regarding the ACT. “In light of the Corps’ September 30, 2015, release of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement” related to the basement, the senators wrote, “Congressional action is needed given the current proposal would continue to severely restrict water flows for downstream users. “The ACF’s water supply is the lifeblood for many Alabama and Florida communities, and supports multiple industrial and domestic uses. For example, both Florida and Alabama rely on the ACF for navigation and the production of hydroelectric power that supplies efficient, low-cost energy for many throughout the region. In addition, Alabama and Florida depend on the ACF for irrigation and agricultural purposes, flood control, and water quality. Without a reliable and consistent freshwater flow from the ACF, entire communities and their respective economies are left to the decisions and priorities of those upstream,” they wrote. They lawmakers said the river accounts for $200 million in economic impact annually on the region, and directly employs some 85 percent of the local workforce there. Recent ecological and water management mishaps have caused severe damage to basin, and to the surrounding economy. “Because of each state’s vital need to ensure that the ACT and ACF River Basins are properly managed with each of their interests appropriately considered, we urge the Subcommittee to include language in any omnibus appropriations vehicle that ensures that management of both of these critical basins are not left to the whims of an unaccountable federal bureaucracy, but instead is properly determined and agreed upon by each state’s governor,” the bipartisan group of senators concluded. See the full text of the letter here, courtesy of Rubio’s congressional office.
Alabama challenges federal water rules
The state of Alabama — under the auspices of Gov. Robert Bentley, who announced the move Thursday — is suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, saying that its operating manual governing the Corps’ stewardship of the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa River Basin is inadequate to meet the needs of Alabamians. In a 30-page complaint — available in full here — counsel for the governor’s office alleges the feds “failed to adequately address valid comments and objections made by Alabama and other stakeholder commenters in response to the draft versions” of the manual with regard to the Allatoona Project, a water project spanning much of eastern Alabama and managed by the Corps of Engineers. “The flow of water through the ACT Basin is vital to the economy and environment of Alabama,” Bentley said in a statement Friday. “This manual will decrease the quality of water in our State, which will hurt our citizens. It will also adversely impact the flow of water into our State. It prioritizes water recreation on lakes in Georgia at the expense of hydroelectric power generation in Alabama, which will hurt jobs and the economy. Therefore, on behalf of Alabama, I am requesting that the federal government adopt a lawful manual that respects Alabama’s interests.” The complaints calls for the federal government to “set aside” the manual — i.e. disregard it — as well as to revise other federal documents relating to the ecologically sensitive river basin, pay the state’s court filing and attorney’s fees, and to “award other relief as the Court may deem just and proper to protect Alabama’s interests.” The move is supported by several regional groups affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, including the influential Business Council of Alabama, which applauded the move on Friday. “The lawsuit alleges that the new manual allows the federal government to diminish the quality of water in Alabama to the detriment of all Alabama citizens and to allow the unlawful hold of water at a Georgia dam for the purposes of promoting recreation there rather than releasing the water so it can generate hydroelectric power in Alabama and serve other important purposes the law requires,” the BCA said. “In taking these drastic steps, the federal government has failed to issue an accurate environmental-impact statement that discloses the substantial harm its actions will cause to the Alabama environment, the lawsuit alleges.” The suit is proceeding in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
