Water Supply Issues
Army involvement in works "of a civil nature," including water resources, goes back almost to the origins of the U.S. Over the years, as the Nation's needs have changed, so have the Army's Civil Works missions. Water resources controlled by the Corps of Engineers are used for navigation, hydroelectric power generation, and recreation as well as water supply. The Corps first got involved in water supply in the 1850s, when they built the Washington DC aqueduct. Today USACE reservoirs supply water to nearly 10 million people in 115 cities. In the drier parts of the Nation, water from Corps' reservoirs is also used for agriculture.
Georgia, Alabama, and Florida have been wrangling over how to allocate water from the Chattahoochee watershed for years as metro Atlanta's population has doubled since 1980. In October 2007, the governor of Georgia, Sonny Perdue, indicating an impending crisis with the water supply from Lake Lanier, declared a state of emergency and confirmed that the state would sue the US Army Corps of Engineers who administers the water supply for Atlanta. The Corps acknowledged that they made a mistake in 2006 when they relied on a faulty gauge to measure Lake Lanier's level by nearly two feet. This mistake led to an overestimation of the amount of water that left in the lake and the Corps accidentally released about 22 billion US gallons (83,000,000 m3) of water: enough to supply metro Atlanta's needs for about a month and a half.
However, USACE's analysis of the situation differed from the Governor's, indicating that even without rain for nine months, water supplies would still be adequate. The corps sent a letter to Perdue assessing the situation and pointing out that they are "not going to run out any time soon," In mid-November 2007, the Corps made adjustments to its water retention policies to keep more water in the Chattahoochee watershed. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expedited its study of an interim drought plan submitted two weeks ago by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and concluded that freshwater mussels and sturgeon in Florida and Alabama—kept alive by water from Georgia's Chattahoochee watershed under federal law—will not be jeopardized under the plan. The governors of the three states indicated that they would continue to meet and negotiate.
Other states and tribal nations have also been involved with or had concerns about how the Corps manages water supply, to the extent that Congress or the courts have often gotten involved in trying to mediate disputes.
Read more about this topic: U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers Civil Works Controversies
Famous quotes containing the words water, supply and/or issues:
“Cities give not the human senses room enough. We go out daily and nightly to feed the eyes on the horizon, and require so much scope, just as we need water for our bath.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Local television shows do not, in general, supply make-up artists. The exception to this is Los Angeles, an unusually generous city in this regard, since they also provide this service for radio appearances.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“How to attain sufficient clarity of thought to meet the terrifying issues now facing us, before it is too late, is ... important. Of one thing I feel reasonably sure: we can’t stop to discuss whether the table has or hasn’t legs when the house is burning down over our heads. Nor do the classics per se seem to furnish the kind of education which fits people to cope with a fast-changing civilization.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)