Regulated Rivers - Hydro-Environmental Analysis: Freshwater Environments - page 76

FIGURE 3.31 Lower San Pedro River in Pinal County, Arizona, near the conluence with Aravaipa Creek.
(From USFWS, June 2008 photograph by Carrie Marr, FWS.)
Star (July 24, 2012), the Arizona Department of Water Resources had no grounds on which to
deny the permit and it was granted.
However, states laws can change, as illustrated by Bowman (1991), who followed trends in water
law in eight midwestern states (Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and
Wisconsin), between 1980 and 1987. While in 1980, several of these states had groundwater laws
based on absolute ownership, none had such groundwater laws by 1987 and all were based on either
statutory law or common law based on reasonable use and restatement of torts.
3.6.3 I nterState w ater d ISputeS
One of the issues regarding water law and water rights is water lowing between states. State water
laws, where statutes indicate that the waters are owned by the state, typically indicate that those
waters are protected for use by the people of that state. But, in the use of that water, the state
may impact the downstream states, and deprive them of water. Since states have no jurisdiction
over water in their neighboring states, these conlicts are typically resolved either by congressional
action, by interstate compact, or by the U.S. Supreme Court (Clemons 2004).
For example, the Georgia Water Control Act states that:
O.C.G.A. §12-5-21 (a) 'The people of the State of Georgia are dependent upon the rivers, streams, lakes,
and subsurface waters of the state for public and private water supply and for agricultural, industrial,
and recreational uses. It is therefore declared to be the policy of the State of Georgia that the water
resources of the state shall be utilized prudently for the maximum beneit of the people.'
The problem is that several of the major river basins in Georgia (the ACT and ACF basins,
Figure 3.32) low into Alabama and then Florida. The waters taken to support Georgia, such as the
city of Atlanta, can then impact the environmental quality of estuaries in Florida. The result is what
is generally known as the “tri-state water wars.” The conlicts began in earnest in 1988 based on a
proposed reallocation of the waters in Lake Lanier, on the Chattahoochee River in Georgia, by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which initiated a series of lawsuits by Alabama and Florida. To try
to resolve the issue, the three states and the Corps agreed to a comprehensive study of all of the water
issues affecting the ACF and ACT basins in order to determine a fair allocation of water resources,
which resulted in a halt to the legal battles. From these studies, two compacts were created for the