Friday, October 26, 2007
Water Shortage In Southern U.S.:
Thirsty? Thank A Mussel or A Sturgeon
Georgia and Alabama - Florida too, to a lesser degree - are in a tight and dry predicament with water supplies, with water disappearing as rapidly as eclairs disappear from the dessert cart when it's wheeled past the dining tables of Michael Moore or Rosie O'Moo. But a drought is a good thing, because people don't matter.
What really matters is that the environment comes first. And it is, and this is why people in Atlanta are thirsty and stinky. Come to think of it, doesn't the Rapidly Decaying Corpse of Mike Malloy live near Atlanta? Are you thirsty Mikey? Gee, that's so unfortunate.
It's the right think to do, diverting water for the benefit of the environment over people. This is what the Lefties have been telling us for decades; that the environment is more important than human lives. So a bunch of people die from thirst...so what? I nominate Malloy as the first one to give his life in order for the poor, endangered chipola slabshell mussels can live!
From The Daily Report:
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in consultation with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, sends the water downstream to protect the habitat of four endangered species—fat threeridge, purple bankclimber and chipola slabshell mussels and Gulf sturgeon—living in the Apalachicola River and Apalachicola Bay of Florida.
Announcing plans to seek a federal injunction against the water releases, Gov. Sonny Perdue said last week, “If … the Corps is determined to make this ill-advised choice in favor of mussel and sturgeon species over Georgia citizens, then I must do all within my power to protect our citizens.”
But getting around the Endangered Species Act will be tough, said Florida State University law professor J.B. Ruhl, calling the law “the pit bull of environmental law.”
[...]
Late Friday the state filed a motion for a temporary injunction in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, asking that the Army Corps, which operates the dams along the Chattahoochee River, to stop releasing so much water from Lake Lanier at Buford Dam.
Brown said the state’s legal strategy won’t attack the Endangered Species Act.
“The relief that Georgia will be seeking, whether immediate relief or long-term, will not be antagonistic to either the Endangered Species Act or to endangered species,” Brown said. “We want a more intelligent allocation of the resources that will ensure that there is enough water to meet the needs of all the species, both endangered and human.”
Georgia has proposed that the Army Corps release no more water from Lake Lanier and other Chattahoochee River reservoirs than those lakes receive through rainfall and groundwater. The amount of water the Army Corps is releasing from Lake Lanier is far more than what is necessary to protect the mussels, Brown said. The rate of water being released is based on a faulty biological opinions issued by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
“The force of the Endangered Species Act depends in large part on the strength of the scientific claims underlying the protection of the sturgeon and mussels,” Brown said. “In this case, the science is very thin.”
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said last week that while the amount of water the Army Corps is sending down the Chattahoochee River is far lower than what is normal, and that low level is threatening the mussels and sturgeon, it’s willing to be flexible.
“We’re willing to work with the Corps to allow them to drop [the water flow], if that’s what they want to do,” said U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service spokesman Tom MacKenzie.
[...]
In a move separate from the state’s litigation, Georgia’s congressional delegation on Tuesday filed bills to allow states suffering from droughts to be temporarily exempt from the Endangered Species Act. Both Horder of Kilpatrick Stockton and Ruhl said those bills, filed in the U.S. House and Senate, stood little chance of success.
“For a Democratic-controlled Congress to do that for the Endangered Species Act would be a huge political about-face,” Ruhl said. “Democrats hammered the Republicans any time tinkering with the Endangered Species Act was even suggested.”
(In the snail darter matter, it took a separate act of Congress to complete the dam.)
Since late September, politicians in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama have been fighting with each other and with two key federal agencies—the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—over how to share a critical water source, used by all three states, that is now rapidly shrinking in the face of a continued, historic drought. Georgia officials have predicted that Atlanta's supply of drinking water could be imperiled, if not exhausted, by the end of the year.
[...]
The suspension of environmental laws, Georgia officials say, is necessary to put the brakes on what they see as the main cause of the current water debacle. The Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the reservoir at Lake Lanier, is required to comply with the Endangered Species Act of 1973, which mandates federal protection for the habitats of endangered species. To uphold the law as well as to keep power plants in Alabama up and running the Corps of Engineers for the past several months has been releasing water from Lake Lanier at a rate vastly in excess of its rate of replenishment.
Let the businesses and corporations that use water in their manufacturing close their doors and go out of business. The Liberals are right, corporations are evil, every damn one of them. So what if people lose their jobs and their homes, we must - we simply must - do everything we can to protect the mussel and the purple bankclimber.
I'm siding with the Liberals and Enviro-Lunatics on this issue. Nothing, nothing is more important than the environment, the mussel, sturgeons and some purple something-or-other.
In honor of these poor, endangered species, let us all bow our heads and join together singing the song "Under The Sea" from the animated television series, "The Simpsons":
Homer's Under the Sea Song - 27th November 1994
"Under the sea
Under the sea
There'll be no accusations
Just friendly crustaceans
Under the sea!"
©2007
Labels: Full Circle Liberalism, Malloy The Rotting Corpse
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