Florida charged ahead Tuesday with a lawsuit against the state of Georgia that accuses its northern neighbor of consuming too much fresh water from a river system that serves three Southeastern states.

The legal action filed directly with the U.S. Supreme Court is an escalation in a legal dispute lasting more than two decades over water use in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin.

The lawsuit is not a surprise since Gov. Rick Scott announced in August that the state was preparing one.

But the legal measure asks the high court to take some dramatic steps, including capping Georgia’s overall water use at levels existing in 1992. Florida also wants a special master to enter a decree that would “equitably” divide the waters in the basin, which drains about 20,000 square miles in both states and Alabama.

“The situation is dire and the need for relief immediate,” states Florida’s lawsuit, which maintains Georgia is on pace to double its current consumption levels by 2040.

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