General Assembly’s inaction on water conservation
April 3, 2008 at 2:00 am by Thomas Wheatley in NewsTravis Fain of the Macon Telegraph, who’s perhaps the best journalist covering General Assembly shenanigans without actually having to step foot under the Gold Dome’s evil shadow, has an astoundingly thorough post on his Lucid Idiocy blog about General Assembly leaders’ talk of water-conservation legislation and what’s actually taken shape.
Before the session began, both Gov. Sonny Perdue and Speaker of the House Glenn Richardson told me that, in addition to new reservoir funding this year, they expected water conservation legislation to move.
This was Gov. Perdue’s comment, in January:
Perdue said new building codes “for the future” and tax credits for more efficient water usage are both likely. But the governor twice noted that the state doesn’t want to usurp local power over water resources.
And the Speaker in November:
I’m not going to pass legislation to tell people you’ve got to have a low-flow toilet. I think we could change our policies on EPD, with wastewater treatment, to point discharge instead of sprayer irrigation. I think we can change some really basic things that have to do with leakage. … You do realize that leakage in existing pipes is somewhere between 10 and 12 percent loss per day, just leaking out of pipes. And that’s a problem. … I do see a possible piece of legislation in addition to the reservoir piece that might look into the viability of creating a water resource division to work with Environmental Protection Division. Clearly Environmental Protection Division has not done an adequate job of protecting Georgia’s water resources over the last 10 or 15 years.
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Reservoirs were definitely addressed, with $40 million included in the 2008 budget adjustment for new reservoirs and $500,000 there for existing reservoir maintenance.
As for conservation, it doesn’t seem like a lot of legislation came to fruition. There are several bills dealing with water usage that have either passed or are still alive. Most of them seem to make it easier to use more water as opposed to encouraging conservation, but you should judge for yourself.
Two caveats: 1.) Things change fast these last few days, and bill language is no exception. 2.) The vote status comes from the General Assembly’s Web site Wednesday evening, which may be a little behind.
Read here for more.
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