River that states share called 'most endangered'

COLUMBIA --- A river that flows between North and South Carolina has been named the most endangered waterway in the nation by an environmental advocacy group that considers it threatened by potential overuse and the region's persistent drought.

American Rivers put the Catawba-Wateree River at the top of its top 10 list for 2008. It's the latest bit of bad news for the 300-mile river, which is also the focus of a legal fight between the Carolinas that's made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"People across America should look at what's happening on the Catawba-Wateree as a preview of coming attractions, and this movie isn't a comedy, it's a horror film," said Rebecca Wodder, the president of the Washington-based group.

The organization chooses rivers from nominations made by environmental and river advocacy groups and looks at the significance of a river as a resource, the level of the threat and pending decisions that could affect it in the next year, Ms. Wodder said. The most-threatened rivers this year are endangered by proposed construction projects, outdated management plans and faulty ideas to pull water from them, the report said.

A water-use debate is under way in the Carolinas, where two growing suburbs of Charlotte, N.C., want to pull millions of gallons from the river before it flows south to the state line, near where its name changes to Wateree. The river already provides drinking water to 1.3 million people and electricity to at least a million people, according to Charlotte-based Duke Energy Corp., which owns and operates the river's reservoirs and power plants.

In June, South Carolina filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court opposing plans by Concord and Kannapolis, N.C., to pump as much as 10 million gallons a day from the river. South Carolina said a 1991 North Carolina law allowing the transfer violates the U.S. Constitution because it prevents the states from sharing the river equitably.

The American River study asks both Carolinas to track and regulate the amount of water each withdraws. It also asks lawmakers in both states to pass new laws restricting water withdrawals.