The state is on a revenue diet so strict it is withering away. At the same time it is gulping down copious amounts of water legislation. Between the drought of the recent past and the ongoing “water wars” that threaten to put Atlanta on life support, having water on the mind is certainly understandable.
However, one condition plainly affects the other. With no money to cure the water ailment, the state must turn to faith healing. It seeks to cure the spirit of the condition with new incantations to make it go away.
So long as advocates of a water policy wiser than “It’s ours, dang it, and Atlanta has first dibs” recognize this as a toddler’s first attempt to swim, that’s an improvement. So long as neighboring states with a court-supported claim to “our” water are willing to accept this as a true change of heart and attitude, it may well smooth the troubled negotiation seas.
But none of this — and there are loads of bills alive and well in this one area of concern — is actually going to repair what is a supply-and-demand problem. Georgia’s water increasingly isn’t where it needs to be to deal with population and business growth. Long overdue conservation measures will help but, in the long haul, more water availability will be needed be it via reservoirs, aqueducts from Tennessee, wells tapping the aquifers or whatever. All such would cost money that the state does not have and likely will not have for quite a few years to come.
HENCE, Gov. Sonny Perdue’s new-found faith in conservation has sailed through both House and Senate almost unanimously. Anything that might cost money will be “studied” yet some more. Anything that the state can point its regulatory gun at will be shot on sight.
On the immediate action front, the legislation features a universal household outdoor watering ban between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Most Georgians already know such watering is akin to running the refrigerator with the door open but, OK, can’t hurt. Also, separate water metering will be required for new apartment construction and such, which can be quite expensive. Nobody is actually building much of anything these days, are they?
The state doesn’t have money for logical immediate conservation action — subsidizing low-flow toilet and shower installations, repairing leaky water mains, distributing rain barrels and so forth that could have instant impact.
Also falling into the incantation category — some seem to see it as a curse — is the River Basin Protection Act of 2010, introduced in both houses, that would actually insist any proposed interbasin transfer (taking waters from one watershed and putting it in another) be examined for possible negative impact before proceeding. Every member of the Greater Rome legislative delegation is a co-sponsor or supporter of this. All live in the Coosa River Basin where nearby Atlanta’s thirst makes this a constant worry.
AT PRESENT it takes little to stick such a straw in a neighbor’s water; basically, a published notice seven days before starting the pumps that the state is about to allow such to happen. While more regulators and bureaucrats rarely are the solution to anything, having nobody watching the store is even less wise.
The measure would create comment periods, make public hearings possible and so forth to assure any such diversion would follow the standard of “first, do no harm.” It contains exemptions, such as for agricultural needs and true emergencies, but otherwise demands scientific evidence. This is certain to slow any water grab simply by creating a dam of paperwork.
This legislation is needed because, as Joe Cook, executive director of the Coosa River Basin Initiative and Riverkeeper, put it: “It’s not that we don’t want to share what we have in abundance. It’s that we want to make sure sharing is not going to harm us.”
Nonetheless, it wasn’t in the governor’s just-passed water plan because he opposed any mention of interbasin transfers, many big-business interests are lined up in opposition, and a number of Atlanta-based deep thinkers have fulminated against it. Which brings up a question: Why?
THE ONLY FLAW, if it is such, is that the measure opens the possibility of everybody being treated to what Greater Rome has already endured regarding key highway work such as the U.S. 411 Connector. Having hearings and studies, which possibly lead to grounds for seeking injunctions or filing lawsuits, could be used by environmental interests to stall a proposed water transfer forever, just as Rome’s link to I-75 has been stalled for more than 30 years not by need, not by money, but by roadblocks of repeated studies, environmental concerns, lawsuits, politics and so forth.
Perhaps adding a time limit to the measure might be a good idea: Complete the studies in six months, hand any disputes to a binding arbitration panel, or forget the permit request.
There’s a flip-side proposal in the legislature as well that would authorize systems in the North Georgia Water District to begin “interconnectivity” to deal with future problems. That district, of course, is code for “Atlanta metro” and already has a straw the size of a fire hose in the Coosa River Basin — the Etowah River and Lake Allatoona. This might be viewed as intended to assure that no transfer permits at all are required if Atlanta is getting parched. Of course, such mutual-assistance connections don’t come cheap — pipes and pumps and more and there’s no money around for such things either. Except, perhaps, through skyrocketing water rates for suburbanites.
THIS CONTINUES to be far more than just another water-balloon fight between rival schoolboys. It warrants close attention even though, obviously, the dire drought is over for the moment.
Why, that bill for emergency water sharing in the 15-county Atlanta area even insists such plans are to be kept secret in order not to “compromise security against sabotage and terrorist acts” and also “be subject to the exception from public disclosure.”
Since Osama bin Laden hasn’t taken a side in the “water wars” to this point, and never filed an Open Records Act request in Georgia, just who are these aquatic terrorists that Atlanta is so worried about? Us?
www.coalitionfortherightroad.org