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5 S. Region Black Students Ass'n L.J. 1 (2011)
On Our Terms: Using Environmental Justice to Formulate a Peace Agreement to End the Tri-State Water Wars

handle is hein.journals/srebwsude5 and id is 9 raw text is: On Our Terms: Using Environmental Justice to Formulate a Peace Agreement to End the Tri-State Water Wars By: Carmela E. Orsini *Case Note of the Year W.E.B. Du Bois claimed that the dominant theme of the twentieth century was race.' In the twenty-first century, the scarcity of environmental natural resources has taken over as the dominant theme. One resource seems to be at the heart of many environmental law discussions: water. It covers roughly 71% of our planet.2 Many people across the planet struggle for clean drinking water, water for growing crops, and water for industry or recreation.3 This century's issue of scarcity, however, has not been born in a vacuum, free from last century's racial influence. As a result, environmental justice has emerged as a field of study analyzing the relationship between racism and environmental pollutants and resources. Analysis of the Tri-State Water War between Alabama, Florida, and Georgia is nothing new. However, one voice has been silent amidst the rumble of battle: the voice of environmental justice. After years and years of litigation, failed negotiations, and a general feel of getting nowhere, a fresh voice is needed in order to allocate a scarce resource, water from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin. The fresh perspective that the environmental justice framework can provide to the negotiations has the potential to get the water allocation among the three states settled through alternative dispute resolution. Although settlement talks thus far have failed, framing the question through the lens of environmental justice would allow the states to recognize the underlying racism and could pave the way towards establishing an allocation formula for the Chattahoochee River. Section I of this paper focuses on the concept of environmental justice, tracing the movement's roots, themes, and development. Section II explores the complex history of the Tri-State Water Wars, introducing the relevant players, explaining the interests of each, and the onslaught of litigation involved. Section III explains the alternative dispute resolution efforts that have been utilized in the Tri- State Water Wars and their continuously failures. Section IV argues that the environmental justice framework could significantly impact these alternative dispute resolution negotiations in such a way that could lead to a solution or settlement. I. The Environmental Justice Movement As early as the 1970's, people began to see environmental concerns such as toxic waste sites and groundwater contamination as more of a national problem instead of localized concerns.4 Technological advancements in telecommunications and news transmissions spawned more interest in environmentalism as people around the nation could see the effects of local environmental disasters.5 ' Jill E. Evans, Challenging the Racism in Environmental Racism: Redefining the Concept ofIntent, 40 ARIZ. L. REV. 1219 (1998) (citing W.E.B. Du Bois, THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK 13 (Donald B. Gibson ed., 1989)). 2 Steven I. Dutch, Earth in World Book Online Reference Center (World Book, Inc. 2004), available at http://www.worldbookonline.com/wb/Article?id=arl 71540. See, e.g., WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, 10 FACTS ABOUT WATER SCARCITY, available at http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/water/cn/. 4 See Evans, supra note 1, at 1229. See generally ENVIRONMENTAL LAW FROM RESOURCES TO RECOVERY (Celia Campbell-Mohn et al., eds., 1993) (discussing the history of environmental law). See, e.g., California Coast Incident, N.Y. TIMES, Jan. 31, 1969, at 50 (Santa Barbara Oil Spill of 1969). I

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