Supreme Court gives Georgia win in water war with Florida
The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously for Georgia in its long-running dispute with Florida over water
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled unanimously for Georgia on Thursday in its long-running dispute with Florida over water.
The court rejected Florida’s claim that Georgia uses too much of the water that flows from the Atlanta suburbs to the Gulf of Mexico. Florida said that its neighbor’s overconsumption is to blame for the decimation of the state’s oyster industry.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the court that Florida failed to prove its case.
“Considering the record as a whole, Florida has not shown that it is ‘highly probable’ that Georgia’s alleged overconsumption played more than a trivial role in the collapse of Florida’s oyster fisheries,” Barrett wrote.
The justices dismissed Florida’s lawsuit, which had been before the court twice in the past three years.
The case involved the Flint and Chattahoochee rivers in Georgia, which join to form the Apalachicola River at the Florida line.
