Green Scissors 2001 Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) River System

"Based upon our review and conversations with the Corps, I believe that maintaining navigation on the ACF is not economically justified or environmentally defensible."

Assistant Secretary of the Army Joseph Westphal in letters to Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), August 9, 2000 and Representative Bob Barr (R-GA), August 14, 2000.

The Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) River Navigation system through Florida, Alabama, and Georgia is a small part of the inland waterway system operated and maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). Although the ACF River system is virtually unused by ships and barges, federal taxpayers spent $12.9 million in fiscal year 2002 year to maintain it. The dredging of this river system and disposal of sediment along the riverbanks destroys aquatic habitat, smothers wetlands, and risks the productivity of the Apalachicola Bay estuary.

Green Scissors Proposal

Decommission this underused navigation system, saving taxpayers an estimated $12.9 million in operations and maintenance costs annually, or $64.5 million over the next five years.

Current Status

In 2000, then Representative Bob Barr (R-Ga.) and Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.) investigated options to close the ACF to commercial navigation, but faced stiff resistance from other legislators from Alabama and Georgia. In July 2002, Senators Graham and Nelson (D-Fla.) introduced legislation to deauthorized maintenance on the Apalachicola River and authorized a study to aid river ecosystem recovery. Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) introduced an identical bill by in the House of Representatives.

Program Hurts Taxpayers

This virtually unused navigation system is a drain on the federal Treasury. Federal taxpayers spend over $10 million annually to maintain the ACF River system despite the fact that an estimated two or fewer barges use the system each day.

A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis from the early 1990's found that the ACF River system is one of the most highly subsidized navigation projects in the entire inland waterway system. In the study, the CBO calculated that ACF navigation cost more than 50 times the national average for navigation channels.

Program Hurts the Environment

Dredging scours the river's bottom, and disposal of that dredge material has already smothered one-quarter of the Apalachicola's banks with mountains of sand, destroying key habitat and choking the area's rich tangle of sloughs, side channels, and wetlands.

The Corps' creation of "navigation windows" of high water to allow barge travel upstream also causes severe harm. Apalachicola sport fish have been in rapid decline since the practice began in 1990, and the April 2000 navigation window resulted in an almost complete failure of sport fish spawning along the entire Apalachicola River and reservoirs upstream. State and federal wildlife agencies have raised concerns over the loss of preferred habitats for federally protected fish and shellfish. The Apalachicola floodplain is a biological factory fueling Apalachicola Bay. It is one of the cleanest remaining estuaries in the Southeast. The bay is home to 15 percent of America's and 90 percent of Florida's annual oyster harvest. A decline of 50 percent to 75 percent in gamefish populations has been estimated near dredge material disposal sites.

Contacts

Steve Ellis, Taxpayers for Common Sense, (202) 546-8500 x126
Marilyn Blackwell, Help Save the Apalachicola River Group,
(850) 639-2177
Melissa Samet, American Rivers, (415) 482-8150




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