“Water Wars” Focus of Annual Northeast Florida Environmental Law Summit
Stephen Walsh presented a talk titled “Relationship of Flow to the Aquatic Faunas of Florida Rivers, Springs, and Estuaries.”
On November 6, 2008, Stephen Walsh, biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) office in Gainesville, Florida, served as a panelist at the annual Northeast Florida Environmental Law Summit on “Water Wars: Use, Conflict, and the Future,” jointly hosted by the Florida Coastal School of Law and Jacksonville University. Walsh presented a talk titled “Relationship of Flow to the Aquatic Faunas of Florida Rivers, Springs, and Estuaries.”
The conference, now in its second year, is intended to bring together scientists, legal professionals and students, and natural-resource managers to discuss current and emerging environmental issues of regional interest. Ten other panelists included representatives from the University of Florida, the University of South Florida, the South Florida Water Management District, the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law, the Environmental Law Institute of Washington, D.C., and independent legal experts. Discussions at the conference examined the myriad issues related to allocation, consumption, and redistribution of water resources in and around Florida, with emphasis on:
- a tri-State water conflict over resources in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama (particularly the Apalachicola, Flint, and Chattahoochee Rivers),
- intra-State surface waters (Kissimmee River, the Everglades, coastal rivers), and
- ground-water resources.
Cynthia Barnett, senior writer for Florida Trend magazine and author of the award-winning book Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S., gave a keynote address to the approximately 100 attendees. The general consensus among panelists and members of the audience was that the water resources in Florida are extremely stressed and that innovative solutions and well-organized cooperative efforts are required to protect both the quantity and quality of these resources.
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