Water wars continue with 2026 legislation concerning Duck River

Bills concerning the Duck River and Middle Tennessee water utilities are once again at the statehouse as water demand continues to climb. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout).

The tension between protecting natural resources and sourcing enough water to fuel Middle Tennessee’s growth is once again coming to the statehouse.

Members of the Tennessee General Assembly filed a handful of bills as of Tuesday concerning the Duck River, a scenic river known worldwide for supporting a vast array of freshwater species, including several federally endangered and threatened species. The river also serves as the sole water source for roughly 250,000 people in Middle Tennessee, an area that faces increasing development pressure and intermittent drought periods. Environmental groups have warned for years that drawing more and more water from the river is unsustainable.

One bill seeks to prohibit the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, which regulates water withdrawals from rivers, from stopping any utility that provides drinking water from making withdrawals, regardless of drought conditions. A proposed House Joint Resolution would express support for reconstructing the Columbia Dam, a project that was halted in the 1980s and dismantled in the 1990s.

Another bill would designate several rivers and creeks as Class II pastoral waterways, which would protect those areas from mining, commercial timber harvest, and landfill uses and allow private landowners the option to participate in protections to ensure the land remains pastoral. While portions of the Duck River are already designated as Class II waterways, this bill would stretch the classification to the entire river, except the portion including the Normandy Reservoir, which is managed by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Rep. Pat Marsh, a Shelbyville Republican, did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding this bill.

Bills may still be amended, and the filing deadline for new legislation is Jan. 30.

Taking away regulatory power

A bill introduced by Chapel Hill Republican Rep. Todd Warner would block the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation — which issues water withdrawal permits for utilities — from limiting how much water a utility can withdraw, so long as it is “for the purposes of providing drinking water.”

“I think TDEC has overstepped their bounds in some of these places, especially on the Duck River,” by telling utilities that they must stop pumping if river flow levels drop below a certain threshold, Warner said Tuesday. “Well, we have no backup water, so we’re not going to cease pumping.”

Warner said he filed the bill because he felt the department did not provide an answer as to what would happen to a utility that kept pumping water despite limitations during low flows. He referenced a permit granted to the Marshall County Board of Public Utilities in August 2021 that included water withdrawal limitations for times of drought, when withdrawals could be fatal to the river’s many inhabitants. Marshall County appealed that permit, asking that withdrawal limitations be removed. The department, The Nature Conservancy and the Tennessee Wildlife Federation reached a settlement with Marshall County in 2022 to keep the limits in place.

Warner noted that the bill does allow the regulatory authority to limit withdrawals if required by federal law — for example, if water is found to be contaminated, or contains federally endangered species. But the bill states that this exemption doesn’t apply if federal law only “recommends” pumping be prohibited. 

At the federal level, President Donald Trump’s administration has been slashing environmental regulations, including proposing rule changes that environmental legislators say would weaken habitat and harm protections for threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The administration has stated it is removing “regulatory barriers that hinder responsible resource development and economic growth while maintaining core conservation commitments.”

Under Trump, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin proposed a new rule that would cut federal protection for wetlands. In 2025, Tennessee legislators passed a law that lessened state regulatory protections for an estimated 80% of Tennessee wetlands that lack federal protection.

Supporting a second attempt at a Columbia dam

Warner is also sponsoring a resolution that would show “strong support” for the reconstruction of the Columbia Dam, recognizing the project as a “critical priority for the State to establish an adequate water supply system for sustained growth, economic development, and recreational use.”

The initial dam project ran into multiple issues and was ultimately torn down amid a lawsuit over environmental impacts and land, permitting issues with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, rising costs, and a cost-benefit analysis that recommended scrapping the project altogether.

As water needs grow, a group called “Columbia Dam Now” says a new dam is the only way to provide affordable drinking water for the area. An opposing group, “Don’t Dam the Duck,” has concerns about the project’s feasibility and the impact a dam would have on the river’s delicate ecology.

Columbia Dam Now has been working with U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles since mid-2025 to secure congressional funding for a feasibility study for the project. A cost estimate for a modern-day rebuild of the dam has not been released.

Warner, a member of the Columbia Dam Now board, said his goal for this resolution is to help secure that federal funding. The group spent several months in 2025 collecting similar non-binding resolutions from various county and city governments in the area.

Group seeking to build Columbia Dam on Duck River teams with Ogles to pursue federal funds for study

A group of public officials, conservationists and utility representatives have been reviewing possibilities to address water needs in Middle Tennessee at the behest of Gov. Bill Lee, who issued an executive order in November 2024 declaring the river a “scenic treasure” and creating the group to determine how to balance water needs with the river’s health. 

The Duck River Planning Partnership issued its first recommendations in November, including a feasibility study for a pipeline bringing water from the Tennessee River to Middle Tennessee, a feasibility study for regional water solutions, and raising winter water levels in the Normandy Dam, a reservoir that allows the Tennessee Valley Authority to regulate the river’s water flow. 

Rebuilding the Columbia Dam was not among the partnership’s recommendations.

The Mallory Valley Utility District released a study in September that found that a pipeline supplying water from the Cumberland River to Maury and Williamson counties is feasible, but could cost up to $1.9 billion without state or federal help.

Earlier this month, Columbia’s City Council approved water rate hikes of up to 20% per year over the next five years to fund the construction of a new water intake and water treatment plant to serve Columbia Power and Water Systems’ customers. The new intake is permitted by the state’s regulatory department to withdraw up to 32 million gallons of water per day from the river, 12 million gallons more than the current intake.

While Maury County residents said the new rates will place extreme strain on the finances of already struggling families and residents with fixed incomes, the utility’s leaders said the 20% raise per year represents the worst-case scenario, and annual hikes will likely fall below that cap. State officials said the new intake had been under consideration for at least a decade and is the most advanced of all of the proposed solutions in terms of permitting, public hearings and state approvals. 

The project’s permit is among several included in a settlement over environmental protections between the Tennessee Wildlife Federation, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, and state regulators. The settlement requires the utilities to follow an updated drought management plan approved by the state’s Department of Environment and Conservation and set goals to limit the amount of water allowed to leak from the utilities’ systems.