FROM THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA:
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday refused to take up a measure by U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla., that would have required congressional approval before the Army Corps of Engineers could reallocate more than 5 percent of the water in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin from its natural flow.
Southerland had drafted the measure as an amendment to the Water Resources and Reform and Development Act. It was designed to keep the Army Corps from further tightening the water flows south from Georgia to the Apalachicola Bay, where the seafood industry has collapsed from the effects of last year’s drought and the diversion of water from the river system to metropolitan Atlanta.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said Southerland’s proposal went too far, according to a report in the Tallahassee Democrat. The committee instead passed a resolution encouraging Florida, Georgia and Alabama to reach an agreement on water withdrawals. The three states have been in long-running litigation about the river system they share.