To Court Without the Corps? The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Florida v. Georgia

This paper examines the role of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) in a re-cent Supreme Court case, Florida v. Georgia, concerning water allocation in the Apalachicola -Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) river basin. Although several non-federal, run-of-the-river hydropower dams exist on the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers, the system of five federal dams operated by the Corps most profoundly impacts the flow regime of the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola rivers. While the Corps was not a party in Florida v. Georgia, findings throughout the legal proceedings demonstrated the cen-trality of the Corps to contemporary politics and conflicts in the ACF. We propose the results of Florida v. Georgia can serve as inspiration for geographers studying the ACF river basin and other transboundary rivers to analytically and politically engage with experts and technical knowledge in new ways.