"Connecting the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin - Hydrologically, Biologically and Politically"
The ACF River Basin drains 19,600 square miles from the foothills of the Smokey Mountains to the Northern Gulf of Mexico where Apalachicola Bay pours into the Eastern Gulf. This system provides 35% of the freshwater and nutrients that nourish offshore fisheries over 250 miles out into the Gulf. That same system provides drinking water for the growing North Georgia Metropolitan Area surrounding Atlanta, irrigation for the agricultural breadbasket of the SE US in SE Alabama, SW Georgia and NW Florida, along with energy and industrial uses such as cooling, paper mills and beer making. At the bottom of the system, the Apalachicola River, Floodplain and Bay are renowned as having the highest bio-diversity of any River System in North America and one of the most productive estuaries in the Northern Hemisphere. Management of the water resources has been incongruent, short sighted and uncompromising for over 30 years with divergent interests being authorized by Congress thru the Corps of Engineers and the three states of Alabama, Florida and Georgia. This presentation will provide some insight into the science, politics and litigation involved in attempts to resolve the long-standing water dispute.