Apocalypse Now: The Drought

The month of October saw America wracked by two Biblical-sized calamities: wildfire in California, and drought in the Southeast. Both indict the conservatives' vision of government. Let us first speak of the drought.

Three million Atlanta-area residents get their water from 38,000-acre Lake Lanier. It's three months away from depletion [1]—and that booming metropolis has no backup plan on file for that eventuality. UPS is testing out urinals that don't use water. Coca-Cola's international headquarters has turned off their decorative fountain. Georgia Tech's greening the grass in its football stadium with spray paint, and the city aquarium has shut off its waterfall. [2]

But the problem hardly ends with one municipality's planning failures and these colorful consequences. Almost a third of the entire Southeast is smack dab in the middle of of the National Weather Service's worst drought category—"exceptional": most of Tennessee and Alabama; the northern half of Georgia; parts of the Carolinas, Kentucky, Virginia. As the AP reports, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue "asked a Florida federal judge to force the Army Corps of Engineers to curb the amount of water draining from Georgia reservoirs into Alabama."

And Alabama has to be thrilled with that.

Then Governor Perdue announced he'd sue the Army Corps of Engineers [3] to keep them from sharing Lake Lanier water with three other states. Among the suggested solutions for Georgia: desalinating ocean water, building regional reservoirs—and, the the AP reports [1], "piping water in from rivers in neighboring states."

Again, those neighboring states, hit by the regional drought, too, just have to be rejoicing.

The conservative failures here are multiple and intersecting. Global warming clearly plays a role: a scorching summer and unusually dry hurricane season. And I wonder how much the low-tax fetish of the most conservative region in the country [4] contributes to this infrastructure failure.

But what most interests me is this strange specter of a resource war between American states. It reveals the conservative contempt for the notion of a federal government—the notion of a shared national community—at its most absurd. States rights über alles! Even if it means robbing Peter to pay Paul. Or rather, robbing Tennessee—a state where at least one town has literally run out of water [5]—to hydrate Georgia.

It strikes me that when one part of the country is suffering a catastrophe, the federal treasury should be there to provide the safety net—or, if you prefer, safety reservoir. Here's an idea: congress could pass an, I don't know, "Water Resources Development Act," or some such socialist scheme. Congressmen, deliberating together, could introduce their constituents' various water resources needs, and democratically and methodically arriving at a shared national parceling out of resources to solve them, at a cost of, say, $177 per American family.

Oh, wait. That's just what they did. A $23 billion bill with precisely that name, costing precisely that much per American family, [6] covering 900 projects in every single state, passed the House this year 381 to 40, and the Senate 81 to 12. This past Friday, the President vetoed it. How much sense does Bush's stunt make? Well, the veto override vote in the House was 361 to 54. [7] (The 54, of course, were all Republicans.) No less a pinko commie than Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma (the one who says global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" [8]) pledges to lead the veto override effort in the Senate. [UPDATE: The Senate has just voted against Bush [9] 79 to 14, for the first veto override of his presidency.]

So why did Bush do this? To prove to historians of the future that he's really a "conservative," shutting down "runaway spending." That's the trap right-wing ideology has forced him into: He wouldn't be "principled" if he actually honored the resource needs of the nation. Even in the middle of a crisis of Biblical proportions that the bill at hand is specifically designed to prevent. Tennessee's two Republican senators, Corker and Alexander, lay it on the line [10]: The bill would "reduce the negative impact of droughts like the record-setting drought our state faces today."

Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia pleaded with his president and fellow Republican not to veto the bill back in May, calling it, among other things, "an investment in the future of our drinking water." [11] He specified its support for a water management project in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell, Georgia to increase the flow of water into the Chattahoochee River. When I saw that I Googled "Roswell" and "drought," and found an AP story, "Georgia Drought Brings Desperation" [12] that featured Roswell as a case study.

Thanks Mr. President, from the people of Roswell, Georgia.

Of course it would be glib to claim that the President's signature on this bill would suddenly drench the parched Southeast. And keeping municipalities in water resources is just one of the myriad useful things this loose, baggy monster of a law [13] does, from fighting invasive species to strengthening levies and wetlands in Louisiana to restoring ecosystems in the Everglades and fighting beach erosion in New Jersey and building new locks on the Mississippi river corn growers say they need to efficiently get their product to market. Another project removes harmful drainage canals in Florida that increase the risk of wildfires. [14]

But note, too, Section 4037: "The Secretary shall conduct a study to determine the feasibility of carrying out a project for water supply, Meriwether County, Georgia." Or Section 5064: "Big Creek, Georgia, Watershed Management and Restoration Program." Or similar infrastructure assistance to Berrien County, Dahlonega, East Point, Fayetville, Grantville, Lagrange, Pine Mountain, Douglasville, Tocoa, Moultrie, Spaulding County, and Carrolton, Georgia. Or, as one resource expert points out, its Everglades restoration provisions, which will "help diminish the impact of future droughts." [15] Another clause provides $7.5 million for a plant to provide clean drinking water to poor residents in three Palm Beach County cities. [16]

Of course the true conservatives call it all "pork." But the president of the American Association of Port Authorities [17] has a good comeback for charges of "excessive cost": most of these projects have been backlogged for as much as seven years—the last time Congress passed a water bill, even though it's intended to be reauthorized every two years. That's just what you get when conservatives try to run a government. You end up spending more than you would had you spent responsibly in the first place. Penny-wise, pound foolish, yada yada yada.

But, the conservatives say [18]: You're on your own! "Wastewater, drinking water, and sewer infrastructure projects are ordinarily funded at the state and local level," the Heritage Foundation opines. "WRDA shifts these costs onto federal taxpayers, most of whom will never see, use, or benefit from the projects."

Guess what, Heritage Foundation: If water infrastructure was merely a state and local problem, Georgia wouldn't be suing the Army Corps of Engineers. Like Thomas Jefferson said: "The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it."

Unless you live on the wrong side of the state line. Atlanta runs out of water? The Heritage Foundation says: Let them drink Coke.