Fresh Loaf

OIL SPILL: Covers 100 miles of the Mississippi River.

NORTHERN LIGHTS: Explained.

SUPER GRAND BUFFET: The Duluth restaurant’s 15 out of 100 on its health rating calls into question its super grandness.

PORT REFORM: Savannah overtook Charleston as the top Southeastern port in 2006 and has since widened the gap, but Chucktown’s catching back up.

ETOWAH INDIAN MOUNDS: Will be recovered with natural flora, replacing the grasses that have adapted to the area since European settlers moved in.

CAROL COUCH: Says Georgia, Alabama and Florida should go ahead and split the bill for a study on water management in the tristate area, rather than waiting for Congress to pick it up.

BOOKINGS KILL BOOKS: Lil Kim and Foxy Brown are in trouble with their publisher after their incarcerations kept them from writing books they had already been paid advances for.

HELLA PAD: Atlanta’s first helipad opens downtown.

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Don’t look for this story in That Other Paper or on any of the television networks in town save for Fox5 — it ain’t there.

Three months ago, Dale Russell, the station’s investigative watchdog, broke a story about the state Environmental Protection Division’s Carol Couch giving developers planning a Wal-Mart in Forsyth County a green light to build on top of a stream.

In doing so, Couch essentially overrode her own agency’s previous judgment, and left many people wondering if the decision wasn’t part of a deeper political powerplay by Gold Dome bigwigs aimed at convincing then-DOT Board Chairman Mike Evans — who was developing the big-box store deal — to cast the deciding vote that placed Gena Abraham at the helm of the state transportation agency. Evans and Abraham later revealed they fell in love after she took the job. Evans resigned, Abraham stayed, c’est la vie, oobla di, oobla da, that’s amore.

Dedicated government gadfly George Anderson, of nonprofit one-man watchdog group Ethics in Government Group, filed complaints Friday about those scandals with the state inspector general against the EPD, DOT officials and Gov. Sonny Perdue. Anderson’s filed more than 300 such complaints and even questions the inspector general if she’ll act on them.

For a quick rundown of the details, view Russell’s report here.

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GOING INTO LABOR: Delta flight attendants to vote on unionization.

ROAD TO HELL: Will be repaved with good intentions every weekend for the next eight months.

HOLDS WATER? Carol Couch stumps for state water plan at Ga. Tech.

DROUGHT: Downgraded from “exceptional” to “extreme,” skipping over “badass.”

DOGFIGHTING: Austell ring broken up.

MICHAEL VICK: State dogfighting trial postponed until June 27.

WIND OUT OF OUR SALES: Legislators are predicting the bill that would allow communities to vote on whether they want to allow Sunday alcohol sales won’t make it to the House floor for a vote.

SINISTER MINISTER: Habersham County reverend busted for allegedly having nine sexually explicit online chats with undercover cop posing as 14-year-old girl. (And I swear I won’t harp on this anymore, but AccessNorthGa.com has yet another insightful news graphic.)

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Dale Russell of Fox 5 Atlanta reports that Carol Couch, director of the state Environmental Protection Division, may have engaged in a little favor dishing for Mike Evans, the state Department of Transportation board chairman.

Evans and some of his developer buddies had a proposed Wal-Mart project in Forsyth County. A stream ran through the land. With time running out on the development group’s contract with the big-box retailer, going through the EPD’s permitting process to build on it — you know, doing the right thing — would’ve been too time-consuming, they thought. So, according to the documents Russell obtained, Carol Couch — after a little prodding from U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., and Sen. Judson Hill, R-Marietta — overrides the variance and gives ‘em a pass. What ensues is confrontation journalism at some of its most awkward and delicious, although sadly there are no middle fingers or hands over lenses here.

Check it out. I’d heard that Russell had been holding this report until after the DOT election. I’m glad it’s out now. It’s a sad, sad state of affairs when the person looking out for the environmental well-being of the state has to be concerned with politicians’ business interests as well.

Oh, and the Wal-Mart planned for the site? Never built.

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Carol Couch, the director of the state Environmental Protection Division, opened the floodgates yesterday and said that Georgians in the 61 drought-afflicted counties may commence limited outdoor watering once their communities give the green light. Be sure to check if your area has decided to do so.

One person with one hose can water between midnight and 10 a.m. for 25 minutes, three days a week on an odd-and-even-based street address system. If you’ve got newly installed landscaping, you can water on that same system three days a week for 10 weeks after you’ve completed an online Outdoor Water Use Registration Program. It’s free and will be available here March 15.

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Gena Abraham, commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, and Carol Couch, director of the state Environmental Protection Division, spoke today at the South Metro Outlook conference held at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park. Lots of interesting tidbits, but to aid you, dear reader, I’ve bulleted the eyebrow-raisers of the morning.

• “We have to look at alternate modes of transportation,” Abraham said. “We can not build enough roads and bridges to build ourselves out of this transportation problem.”

Increasing property and construction costs have presented a challenge to the cash-strapped and mismanaged state agency that for years has been known as “the Department of Roads and Bridges,” she said. (Abraham took the reins in December 2007.) While Abraham did not want to jump too far ahead and outline what she thought the metro region needed in terms of transportation fixes, she did say that she would support the findings of the Transit Planning Board. That board is a coalition of MARTA, the Atlanta Regional Commission, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority and the DOT. View its plans for metro Atlanta here.

• Abraham said that MARTA should be the backbone for the transit system in the state. (I think she meant “city” here. She was speaking about how the transportation dilemma is a statewide problem, affecting Georgia’s ports as well as metro Atlanta congestion. Continued inaction would lead to economic impacts, she said. For example, freight traffic coming from the state’s ports into the metro region would be affected.)

• “Now, about public-private initiatives,” Abraham said. “They are not the panacea. They only cover a portion of these projects. We have to look at alternate modes of transportation in addition to PPIs.” Multiple sources of funding exist, she said, and should be explored and considered. (more…)
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After three years of changes, edits and debate, the Georgia Water Council unanimously passed the state’s first comprehensive water plan this morning. According to the approved plan, the state will be divided into 12 water-planning districts drawn along county lines and each served by 25 council members.

The statewide water plan has been the subject of scrutiny and debate since its inception, and the outrage protested by the environmental community was joined by editorial boards and elected officials outside of Atlanta after a last-minute edit by the EPD that drew water-planning districts by county lines rather than natural watersheds. Critics claimed that one region could draw from many different watersheds, potentially upsetting the natural supply. Critics of the plan also voiced concern about the council’s member-selection process, as the ultimate appointments would be decided by the governor, lieutenant governor and the House speaker.

Members of the Water Council signed off on a plan that wiggled just a tad: Of the 25 members in each water-planning district, 13 would be selected by the governor and six each by the lieutenant governor and House speaker. Of those members, at least eight would have to be a locally elected official, such as either a county commissioner, mayor or council member.

Water-planning districts are based around watersheds, but notice my use of the plural form. The Metropolitan North Georgia Water District, the 16-county entity that oversees the metro region’s water management, sits on five watersheds. The approved plan’s critics have labeled this tactic as just another move by metro Atlanta to sustain its notorious growth. One environmentalist told me today that until the district is broken up, there will be no equitable water-sharing strategy in Georgia.

Yet EPD Director Carol Couch, who is chairwoman of the Georgia Water Council, says the plan has teeth and will be enforced. During comments with reporters after the vote, Couch said she was “mystified” by critics of the plan who claim that it just allows for more water for metro Atlanta.

Members of organizations such as the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the Georgia Poultry Association and the Georgia Traditional Manufacturers Association all voiced their support of the plan and agreed it was the best possible solution.

Jennette Gayer of Environment Georgia applauded the council for its hard work and dedication, but stated that the plan was vague and did not meet her group’s and the Georgia Water Coalition’s recommendations for a sound water plan, which included downstream community protection, provided adequate funding for implementation, laid out sound conservation strategies, ensured water quality, and would have been based on public input and enacted locally.

“This plan reads like a plan to make another plan,” Gayer said.

Joe Maltese of the Middle Chattahoochee Water Coalition said the plan concerned him because district boundaries were based on political rather than nature’s design.

“Mother Nature formed boundaries,” he said to the council. “And no matter what we do to form political boundaries, Mother Nature will always win.”

The plan will now be delivered to the General Assembly, where the legislative body can either approve it, concoct its own, or send it back to the Water Council for revision. If approved as is, it would be passed as a resolution. In other words, it would not be law, but policy.

The approved plan has not been posted yet, but I’ll provide a link once it comes online.

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