There is a saying on the western part of the United States that runs like this: “He who controls the water controls the west”.

Here on the Gulf Coast we don’t usually give too much serious thought to the amount of fresh water we have — other than when it doesn’t rain.

Too little or too much means we have to water the lawn and drive slow on flooded streets. Florida has been taking its fresh water seriously for the last few years now and has been in talks with Alabama and Georgia over the amount of fresh water in the Chattahochee River that is allowed to reach it.

The Chattahochee River is on Alabama’s eastern border with Georgia. The good bass fishing in that river is supported by the sewage outflow from Atlanta. The fish biomass is 300 percent higher than it would be without sewage.

When the sewage hits the Gulf it aids in supporting a wide variety of marine life. It can also cause oxygen depletion problems if there is too much sewage or the tide doesn’t flush it out to sea.

If too much of the Chattahoochee river water is diverted by Atlanta the level in the river will drop, resulting in fish kills and algal blooms when what’s left reaches Florida.

Oysters prefer brackish water as opposed to full strength sea water or fresh water. During a drought, when estuarine waters are too salty the “oyster drill”, a marine snail, moves onto the beds and starts killing the oysters. When there is too much fresh water, for too long a time, the oysters die.

In the late spring if there is an influx of fresh water into the estuaries it kills the shrimp larvae resulting in a below average shrimping season.

The opposite is true when there isn’t enough rainfall — resulting in lots of shrimp and lower prices. It’s a delicate balance between fresh and salt water for most estuarine organisms with somebody always on the losing end no matter what happens.

Given the drought the southeast has been dealing with over the last 10 years, discussions over water allocation are a serious matter for the future of the states involved.

Alabama is a state that has been blessed with an abundance of fresh water resources. As an example, the Mobile River drainage basin has the greatest surface-water discharge of any basin in North America.

The average discharge per square mile from the Mobile River is almost three times greater than that of the Mississippi River. The runoff brings with it large amounts of silt, which is dropped into the Mobile Bay once the flow slows down after entering. This is one of the reasons the upper bay is silting in.

About 38.6 billion gallons of water enter Alabama each day from adjacent states and roughly 92 billion gallons leave daily.

When words like million and billion are used it’s really hard to grasp the associated magnitude. One thing that might help is that approximately 28 percent to 31 percent of all the fresh flowing water in the continental U.S. flows out of or through Alabama.

I had to look this up in six different references because I didn’t believe it was that much. The average rate of ground-water movement, well water, in Alabama is probably about one inch per day.

A drop of water moving at this rate would take 174 years to travel one mile. Knowing this, the areas of Alabama that are heavily dependent on ground water as their primary water supply for homes, industry and agriculture suffer the most from extended periods of drought or heavy water use further up the drainage basin.

You can find more information at the following Web site, gsa.state.al.us/gsa/water.html.

Think Global-Act Local!

Dr. Skip Lazauski can be seen on his television show “Eco-Bites”, which airs on Mediacom’s channel 14 and Smartel’s channel 4. To reach Dr. Lazauski for questions and comments, send e-mails to IchiOrca@yahoo.com. For more information, see his Web site, drskiponline.com.