Three governors begin water-pact talks

Web posted February 18, 1998

Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- The governors of Alabama, Georgia and Florida begin talks today aimed at keeping the states out of court fights over shared waterways.

The governors' signing of documents to start the talks is the easy part.

After almost a decade in which the water dispute simmered on the edge of boiling, the negotiating is just getting started.

The governors are formally launching the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa River Basin Commission and the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin Commission, both created by Congress last year and given until the end of 1998 to reach agreements.

Walter Stevenson, Alabama's water resources director and a member of Gov. Fob James' negotiating team, said the sharing formulas are ``going to have to be ground out at the negotiating table'' within the current calendar year.

``It is going to be tough on all the parties to come to some type understanding on the allocation formula,'' Mr. Stevenson said. ``The task ahead of us is clearly the most difficult to deal with.''

Mr. Stevenson said Georgia Gov. Zell Miller and Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles will attend today's meeting with Mr. James.

For the rest of this year, the commissions will negotiate formulas to determine the quantity of water that will be allocated to each state from the four major river systems that originate in Georgia and flow into Alabama and Florida.

Officials in Georgia recently pulled back an application seeking a Corps of Engineers permit for a west Georgia reservoir after Alabama officials said it could derail efforts to reach a water sharing agreement.

The states have been on the brink of a water war since Alabama withdrew a lawsuit in 1990 that was aimed at stopping the Corps of Engineers from diverting Tallapoosa River water to the Atlanta area.

Mr. Stevenson said the two commissions would not likely meet together again after today.

He said the Dec. 31 deadline for agreements can be extended only if all three states agree.

Mr. Miller and Mr. Chiles are in the final year of consecutive terms and cannot seek re-election, as Mr. James is expected to do this year.

Mr. Stevenson said Alabama's negotiating team will focus on ``how much water on interstate streams is required to come into Alabama under varying weather conditions.'' He said one of the first actions by the commissions would be approval of ``a public participation plan.''