Finding for FL, SCOTUS Sends Water Wars back to Special Master

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court found in favor of Florida in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Breyer on exceptions filed to a 2017 recommendation by a court-appointed Special Master ruling Florida had not proven its case “by clear and convincing evidence” that imposing a cap on Georgia’s water use would benefit Florida water systems, including oyster-rich Apalachicola Bay and had “applied too strict a standard” in rejecting Florida’s claim. The rejected recommended ruling in the decades-long "Water Wars" case favored Georgia and must now go back to Special Master, Ralph I. Lancaster, Jr., oddly enough a Maine lawyer appointed by the Supreme Court to oversee a claim Florida filed in 2013, on remand. The dispute focuses on the river basin which drains almost 20,000 square miles in western Georgia, eastern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. The Chattahoochee and Flint rivers meet at the Georgia-Florida border to form the Apalachicola, which flows into the bay and the Gulf of Mexico beyond. Attorneys for Florida and Georgia appeared for oral argument earlier this year in this original jurisdiction case previously tried before the Special Master back in 2016. The Court reserved judgment as to the ultimate disposition of this case, addressing here only the narrow “threshold” question of whether an “equity-based cap” on Georgia’s water consumption in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint system would increase the water flow into the Apalachicola River and whether the amount of that extra water would “significantly redress the economic and ecological harm that Florida has suffered." The Special Master could also make further findings that Florida suffered harm from the overconsumption of water by Georgia. Florida still seeks the cap on consumption that would alleviate past damage allegedly caused by Georgia. Future proceedings will weigh Georgia’s claims that any limits on its water use would undermine its economy, including the growth of the Atlanta area and the state’s agriculture industry in southwestern Georgia. Florida ultimately seeks to limit Georgia’s water consumption from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, including Lake Lanier, to 1992 levels and to get reparations for alleged economic and environmental harm to Apalachicola's oyster fisheries from drought. See story here-- https://bit.ly/2Najjo5 and opinion here-- https://bit.ly/2yJVrod