Kelly Layman, FDEP Chief of Staff, periodically provides ACF stakeholders with updates on the ongoing water war between Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.
The City of Apalachicola joined the water war by filing suit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in early January. The city entered the litigation out of concerns that the reduction of freshwater flow was causing irreparable harm to Apalachicola Bay and subsequently to our way of life.
The city’s filing was consolidated into the multidistrict litigation in the U.S. District Court in Jacksonville, where Judge Paul A. Magnuson announced in August that he would render a decision resolving the litigation as early as January 2009.
In her December 8 email correspondence, Ms. Layman reported the following:
Florida and Alabama filed a joint brief on Friday in the U.S. Supreme Court in opposition to Georgia’s appeal. The appeal asks the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, in which Florida and Alabama prevailed when that court nullified the 2003 agreement between the U.S. Army Corps, Georgia, and Atlanta area water suppliers, saying, among other things, that the agreement changed the purposes of Lake Lanier and required approval from Congress. We are hopeful that Georgia’s pending ask for writ of certiorari to have the case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court will be rejected. The joint brief by Florida and Alabama has been posted to the ACF area of the DEP web site:
While I’m here, we also look forward to a final decision in the pending “consolidated case” in the spring of 2009 and a ruling that would continue the momentum of the past year in Florida’s legal victories. We are very thankful to the ACF legal and scientific teams for their very hard work and multiple successes in 2008.
DEP wishes each of you a happy and blessed holiday season.
Kelly Layman
Chief of Staff, Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection
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