Have you ever thought about water and how important it is to our everyday existence?
I mean have you really thought about it.
We already know that water is the most precious resource in the western states. An old Western saying holds that “whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.”
While attending a national planning conference in San Antonio last April, I learned that it hadn’t rained in months. This was at a time when I really needed to mow my own yard twice a week just to keep up with the lush green growth in East Tennessee (although I didn’t always get around to it).
While we were in Denver last summer on vacation, my children heard public announcements about which side of the street could water their lawns on which days. Residents were offered stern warnings that “penalties will be enforced”. We were told of residents who were fined for having their “lawns too green” – a sure sign of water abuse. My children were stunned. They, like many of us in this part of the country, don’t appreciate what we have. They had never been exposed to a place where water doesn’t fall from the sky in even intervals that produce green lawns and dense forests. It was an eye-opening experience for them.
Water shortages aren’t limited to the West. As growth and development occurs in the Southeast, squabbles and legal battles are abounding in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Alabama. For example, the Atlanta metro area is consuming so much water from the Chattahoochee that the $70 million gulf oyster industry in Florida is being jeopardized.
Tennessee’s liquid assets are the envy of most states.
Kingsport, specifically, has millions of gallons of excess water plant capacity (nearly 50% excess if memory serves). This is an asset that is virtually unheard of – even in Tennessee.
Yet another reason to move to Kingsport, www.movetokingsport.com
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Holding Water
By Katie Porterfield
Business Tennessee
February 2007
Water, water everywhere. One glance at the state map and it’s apparent that Tennessee is blessed with blue gold. Fundamental to industry, agriculture, transportation, energy production and tourism, not to mention personal use, Tennessee’s water sources are as ample as they are vital to its economic development.
The state boasts more than 60,000 miles of rivers and streams and almost 538,000 acres of lakes and reservoirs. It benefits from the Tennessee River—the nation’s fifth largest river system—which crosses the state not once, but twice, in its 652-mile trek to the Ohio River. Formed at the junction of the Holston and French Broad rivers above Knoxville, the Tennessee flows southwest to Chattanooga, into Alabama and Mississippi, and back into Tennessee’s Hardin County before ending up in Kentucky. This mighty waterway isn’t the only significant blue area on the map. There’s also the Cumberland River, which enters the state from southeastern Kentucky, makes a loop in northern Tennessee and then flows back into Kentucky before also draining into the Ohio River. Through the years, these two major arteries and their tributaries, along with a statewide average of more than 50 inches of rain a year and plentiful groundwater resources in the western part of the state, have granted Tennessee a relatively worry-free existence when it comes to H20. This abundance—and the absence of water-fueled conflicts as a result—is a luxury most Western states can only envy. Western water conflicts are the stuff movies are made of, literally—the 1974 film Chinatown drew much of its intrigue from The California Water Wars, in which a booming Los Angeles underhandedly purchased thousands of acres in Owens Valley to construct a 233-mile aqueduct that pumped water south. The notorious water grab, along with subsequent moves, robbed valley residents of the water they thought would irrigate their farmland and made a desert of the once fertile valley. Since then, population in the arid western United States has soared, increasing tension over already sparse water supplies and leading to courtroom battles over the rights, use and distribution of various water sources.
The Southeast Oasis?
Meanwhile, for years, the South, with its meandering rivers and generous rainfall, seemed immune to such water shortages, and in turn, to the conflicts that arise from them. Over the last few decades, however, the region has experienced hotter summers, mild winters and below average rainfall. Such conditions, coupled with explosive population growth, have caused experts to question whether the region’s water supply can support future demand for water’s competing uses. Already, conflicts—not necessarily the inspiration for box office hits, but at times just as bitter as those out West—have erupted in places where water was never expected to be an issue. In the 1980s, for example, Virginia and North Carolina began sparring over Virginia’s plans to divert water from Lake Gaston on the Roanoke River, which begins in Virginia and flows into North Carolina, to supply the growing coastal city of Virginia Beach. After 15 years of failed negotiation attempts and a number of lawsuits, North Carolina failed to prove that the diversion would harm the state, and Roanoke River water began flowing to Virginia Beach through a 76-mile pipeline in 1998.
Virginia and North Carolina are not the only Tennessee border states wrestling with water. Georgia and Alabama, along with Florida, are in the midst of a yet-to-be-resolved 17-year-old dispute regarding allocation formulas for water in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) and the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa (ACT) river basins. It all began in 1990, when an Atlanta request that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reallocate water in several North Georgia reservoirs to support its burgeoning population growth sparked lawsuits by downstream users. Alabama argued that Atlanta’s request threatened its own water supply, potentially stunting future growth and resulting in degraded water quality due to a drop-off in water flow. Florida’s concern was more focused—keeping enough water flowing into Apalachicola Bay to support its $70 million oyster industry.
Lawsuits were suspended to allow a comprehensive study on water demand, availability and management for the two river basins. In 1997, the three states formed two congressionally sanctioned compacts, the ACF compact and the ACT compact, to determine allocation policies for apportioning the water. Since then, agreement deadlines have been extended multiple times, parties have broken off talks, and through it all, the three states have spent millions of dollars on legal and consulting fees. The latest deadline, set by a federal judge in Alabama, was January 31. If the three states can’t ultimately reach an agreement, the Supreme Court will likely decide water allocation.
These two conflicts, unprecedented in the East just a few decades ago, serve clear notice: the water wars are here. As population growth and urban sprawl continue throughout the southeastern states, water policy experts anticipate such skirmishes—both interstate and intrastate—will only increase. “Water wars in the Southeast show us that whether you’re living in an environment with lots of water or an arid one, the era of easy water is over,” says Aaron Wolf, water policy specialist in the department of geosciences at Oregon University.
Resource Drains
The role of water-rich Tennessee, whose liquid assets are still the envy of many states, has not merely been that of spectator. In February 2005, Mississippi filed suit against Memphis alleging that the city’s publicly owned municipal utility is pumping water from the Memphis Sand Aquifer at such a rate that it’s drawing water northward from the area under Mississippi, damaging the aquifer and robbing Mississippi of a valuable underground water source. (Litigation is still in the discovery stage.) And while the Volunteer State’s water resources may compare favorably to its peers, within its borders, abundant water is not a given. Particularly in areas experiencing rapid population growth and increased economic activity—and Tennessee has quite a few such areas—local governments face the challenge of maintaining an adequate water supply to sustain existing activities and enable future growth.
While large cities like Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga, benefit from their proximity to the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, it’s cities in headwater areas—small streams where rivers begin—that face water supply challenges as people continue to move there and development follows. “For rural areas in high elevations, water becomes more of an issue,” says Bill Barron, the hydrology and hydraulics branch chief for the Nashville District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “The closer you are to a river, the better off you are, and it gets harder the higher up and farther away you get.” In a 2004 water supply inventory and needs analysis report, TVA, which manages the Tennessee River for the seven-state Tennessee Valley region, identified 13 Tennessee cities and four counties that are already experiencing water woes or are expected to encounter them in the future. “There are communities in areas not served by reservoirs that have problems with water supply under low stream flow, or dry, conditions,” says Chuck Bohac, TVA water supply specialist and co-author of the report. “Some of them have already experienced water supply differentials and have run out of water at certain times, and others, given projected growth, are expected to exceed present supply.”
In Bledsoe County, for example, three of the county’s four wells went dry during the 2000 drought, forcing water to be trucked in, schools to close and businesses to cut back hours. In the Smoky Mountains, where cities like Gatlinburg and Sevierville are experiencing extensive residential and commercial growth, demand is expected to exceed supply. And in Cumberland County, a growing retirement locale and tourist destination, officials realized in the late 1990s that population was destined to outstrip supply. Since then, they’ve been working with the U.S. Corps of Engineers to find alternative water sources.
Susan Hutson, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist at the University of Memphis Ground Water Institute, says other hotspots (not mentioned in the TVA report) in which demand is expected to exceed supply include counties in the Duck River watershed, such as Coffee, Bedford Marshall, Maury and southern Williamson. “We’ve done studies looking at water availability and demand in these areas, and the conclusion is there is adequate water in the river to support needs through 2025,” Huston says. “The Duck River is the most biodiverse inland river in the United States, so there is active concern for preserving that biodiversity and at the same time having enough water to support economic development.”
In fact, the need to balance environmental protection with municipal, industrial, agricultural and recreational water demands is becoming even more critical to water management efforts. Many experts believe conflicts between such competing uses pose the greatest threat to water supply in Tennessee and throughout the Southeast—especially as the region continues to grow. In the Tennessee River watershed alone, TVA and U.S. Geological survey projections predict an increase in population from about 4.5 million to about 5.9 million residents by the year 2030.
All things considered, Tennessee remains in an enviable position. While the Tennessee River is the most intensely used river in the country, consumptive use (water not returned to the system) on the main stem of the river remains low. Though border skirmishes aren’t unheard of, thus far they lack the dire consequences felt out West. And though water shortages for any number of burgeoning Tennessee communities are an inevitable consequence of growth and weather, we’ve as yet avoided crises of a magnitude demanding desperate measures. Nonetheless, as users strive for larger gulps from the same trough, water policy experts say it’s important, not only to beef up conservation efforts, but also to work together as a state and region to manage and allocate water resources. It boils down to better cooperation and ultimately, enlightened stewardship that favors consensus over litigation-fueled mandates.
Hands Across Fiefdoms
From an economic development perspective, cooperation just makes sense. “If you have an area of four or five counties that pool their resources and try to have strategic plans for maximizing assets, you’re going to recruit industry better than four or five that have cut-throat competition with each other,” says Wilton Burnett, special projects director in the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development.
That kind of thinking extends to water. “It’s economies of scale,” says David Feldman, a University of Tennessee professor and political science department head who advises the state on water issues. “If community X and its neighboring community Y are growing, how can they work together and develop a common water supply, so they don’t have to compete with one another?”
Cumberland County Mayor Brock Hill, who has been coping with water supply challenges in Cumberland County for about 10 years, agrees, saying it’s wise to plan with other counties on the Cumberland Plateau. “They will be experiencing in the future what we’re experiencing now,” he says. “You should not have to do it over and over again every time a county needs more water. With more people involved in the process, the potential is greater to have the right solution, and cost per customer will not be as a great.”
Feldman says consolidation of, or even just better cooperation between, utility districts can go a long way toward solving water woes. Consolidation prevents infrastructure duplication and spreads fixed capital, operation and maintenance costs over a larger population base, which provides communities with more reliable supply options and lowers customer costs.
In rural areas that have multiple districts, however, such cooperation can be easier said than done. “Many of our utility districts said they wanted to work together, but when it came down to it, self-interest kicked in,” Hill says. “They were almost like little fiefdoms.”
Avoiding the Bar, and the Czar
Given that rivers transcend state borders, working together within the state is only a starting point. Unfortunately, the trend toward settling water issues in the courtroom will likely get worse before it gets better. “I think we’ll fight a little bit,” Feldman says. “When it comes to water, we don’t quite get it yet. In the western U.S., they would rather not go to court. They’d rather work things out in other ways, but it took generations to get there.” It’s important, however, that Tennessee “gets it.” After all, we only have to look south at Alabama, Georgia and Florida’s protracted squabble for an example of how costly and inconvenient such conflicts can be. “We have to come together with our neighbors and make good agreements in terms of sharing resources,” says Randy Gentry, water resources professor in the University of Tennessee’s civil and environmental engineering department and director of the Southeastern Water Resources Institute. “If we continue down the road we’re heading, conflict resolution will be played out in the courts. It could be an unfriendly scenario for business and municipalities in which planning could be taken out of our hands and be put into the hands of some kind of federal water czar or manager. We need to keep decision-making in our own hands.”
A first step, according to Gentry, might be for governors throughout the region to appoint members to a commission that would come up with a set of recommendations for regional water management. “That set of recommendations would be passed from governors to the federal electorate, saying ‘These are the tools we need to manage water on a regional basis, and we need to implement these tools,’” Gentry explains. “When another governor takes office, he will have to obey the rules and guidelines set down by the water commission.”
An old Western saying holds that “whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.” Though originally a reference to California in the late 1800s, the adage could well gain new meaning east of the Mississippi. But it shouldn’t. Now, while the water is comparatively plentiful and litigation minimal, the state can be proactive in developing regional strategies for sharing water resources and improving water quality. The time to act is now, before resource-sharing issues grow and become contentious. To add a twist to another old familiar phrase—a drop of prevention is worth a gallon of cure.
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Links:
*Downtown Kingsport www.downtownkingsport.org
*City of Kingsport www.kingsportdevelopmentservices.com
*Small Business www.kingsportchamber.org/kedp/sbSmBusSuprt.htm
*Kingsport-Bristol-Sullivan County www.networkstn.com
*Tri-Cities Region www.tricitiesedalliance.com
*State of Tennessee www.state.tn.us/ecd
*Tri-Cities Regional Airport, Air Cargo & Foreign Trade Zone www.triflight.com
