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The first-ever statewide water plan passes both chambers of the General Assembly. It now moves to the desk of Gov. Sonny Perdue. If he approves it, the state will begin a three-year assessment of its water inventory.
House is still debating the issue.
The members of the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee wasted no time this morning passing a resolution in support of the statewide comprehensive water plan. The matter’s slated to be scheduled tomorrow in the chamber’s Rules Committee and heard first thing at the start of the session.
Reps. Brian Thomas, Doug McKillip and Debbie Buckner voted against the resolution and plan to file a minority report to ensure it’ll see debate on the floor of the House. McKillip said the amount of power the plan delegates to the state’s executive branch concerns him.
Sources also said Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has the ability to push the plan in Senate tomorrow.
What’s bound to happen to the state’s first-ever comprehensive water plan? Even though both the state House and Senate Environment and Natural Resources committees have met, it’s still too early to tell.
State Environmental Protection Director Carol Couch, appearing before Senate and House environment committees last night and this morning, respectively, worked to dispel the “myths” about the water plan. This wasn’t a “water grab” by metro Atlanta, she said, but an effort to “[create] a level playing field.” The 25-member councils in each water-planning district were not, as Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority Executive Director Chris Clarke put it, “water czars.” The councils would merely act as liaisons between the state and municipalities. And the plan, as Couch, Clarke, and many members of the Legislature have said, is not a “lock box,” but a “living document” that is subject to tinkering and adjustment.
The environmental community isn’t sold on the idea, and, frankly, wouldn’t mind if the plan’s rubber teeth morphed into fangs. Gil Rogers of the Southern Environmental Law Center spoke at both hearings on behalf of the Georgia Water Coalition and outlined the vagaries of the three-year effort. He says the plan’s language is lax — too many sentences include “should” rather than “shall.” Some river basins, as outlined in the plan, travel through several proposed districts. The Chattahoochee basin, for example, is divided by three. If disputes between districts arise, how would they be resolved? How the plan addresses such a concern is “anemic” at best, Rogers says
The business community loves the product of the three-year effort that, according to EPD’s Couch, included a strong amount of public input. Name a business interest or organization that banks on an ample water supply — home builders, industry, agribusiness, chambers of commerce — and they stood before the committees to give their blessing. And as one environmentalist put it after last night’s two-hour meeting, “Funny how the people who got us into all this mess are the ones saying they love [the plan].” Missing from those expressions of adoration: Utility companies such as Southern Co., which according to the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, gobble up a healthy portion of the state’s water.
The Senate committee voted unanimously in favor of a resolution supporting the plan. The House committee delayed a vote but may hold one at its next meeting, Thursday morning at 8:30. Word around the Gold Dome today is that Senate Republicans have concerns over the 11 water-planning districts presented to them. The regions are decided on county lines, not river basins, as environmentalists, scientists and many others have urged. There are also mumblings about a push for criteria regarding interbasin transfers — the second most widely criticized aspect of the plan and the one that worries downstream communities the most — be written into law. But with the issue’s urgency, such a move may not even budge.
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.
