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Atlanta Water Plan OK'd; Florida To See Effects

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By Billy House of The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 16, 2007

WASHINGTON - Reducing the water flow into Florida's Apalachicola River and other areas as a way to keep drought-stricken Atlanta's water supply from slipping lower likely will kill some mussels and Gulf sturgeon, a new report says.

But the "biological opinion" announced this morning by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service concludes the U.S. Corps of Engineers' water-flow reduction plan will not jeopardize the existence of federally protected mussels as a species or Gulf sturgeon.

Florida officials oppose the plan. which the corps proposes as a temporary strategy to restock Atlanta's water supply. The city's supply is reaching dangerously new levels.

There was no immediate response this morning from Gov. Charlie Crist or state environmental officials to the Fish & Wildlife's Service's announcement.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kemthorne and other federal officials have scheduled a news conference this afternoon to discuss what will happen next, based on the Fish & Wildlife Service's opinion.

The governors of Florida, Georgia and Alabama have pledged to meet next month in Tallahassee to develop a longer-range joint drought plan.

The three states have been feuding over water rights since 1990, but a relentless Southeastern drought has reignited the tensions.

Billed as a compromise to help Atlanta's water problems, the corps' plan is to temporarily reduce the outflow from Lake Lanier in north Georgia into the Chattahoochee River in gradual amounts. Eventually, the flow would be cut 16 percent, reducing the amount of water streaming into the Apalachicola and Flint rivers.

But in a letter to Bush administration officials released Nov. 9, Michael Sole, secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, said such a plan would "starve the Apalachicola River and Bay of freshwater flows needed to keep ecosystems, species and the economy alive."

In its opinion released this morning, the Fish & Wildlife Service acknowledged the reduced flow would likely result in the death and injury of some federally protected mussels and sturgeon, but the corps will be taking measures to minimize that effect.

The opinion cited the federally protected fat threeridge mussel as the most vulnerable. The mussels live in shallow water, and the government scientists estimated 9 percent of the mussels will be exposed when the flows into the river decrease.

But the agency noted that federal laws allow for the agencies to carry out such actions even it harms some populations of federally protected species "for the benefit of the American people."

Lowering the freshwater flowing into Apalochicola Bay also will occur, but the agency says this would happen with or without the corps' plan because of the drought.

Juvenile sturgeon, in particular, could be affected; adult sturgeon appear to be adapted to higher salinity, or saltwater levels, the opinion states.

In addition, Gulf sturgeon spawning habitat in the river may be reduced by 1 to 3 acres.

Reporter Billy House can be reached at (202) 667673 or bhouse@tampatrib.com.

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