Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Water plan represents wishful thinking

By DENNIS CHASE

The Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District is nearing completion of a set of plans for allocation and treatment of our water resources. It may sound like a worry for someone else, but there is a distinct danger that the Georgia General Assembly will take the plans seriously and enact one or more new laws. Laws that will directly affect you and your family!

You have a chance to learn about those plans tonight and you also have a chance to make your voice heard. I urge you to do both.

In my column on this issue last week, I stated that there are serious weaknesses in the plans. Here is more on why I believe that, in addition to directly impacting you and your pocketbook, these plans will adversely impact our environment.

The majority of our drinking water comes from surface sources: Streams. District-wide there are hundreds of these streams. Normal water fluctuation is from very high in spring to extremely low during late summer, especially in periods of drought. The problem is measuring how much of that water is available for our use and when those measurements are made.

Georgia law requires that a minimum flow be maintained at all times, and from this one would assume that someone in the state government knows what the high, normal and low flows are and that they would also be able to calculate what the "required minimum flow" means. That information simply doesn't exist to the degree we need to understand how to allocate the resource, and the impact on the stream ecosystems can be deadly.

If we assume, for the sake of argument, that the amount of water discussed in the plan is really the actual amount available, then we have another serious problem for the environment.

Throughout Georgia, there are thousands of permitted and many more un-permitted water pumps which have not been taken into account by this plan. During the low flow periods, after all "plan allocated" water has been removed, pumps capable of 100,000 gallons per day continue to operate and just a few of these pumps (downstream from municipal pumps) are capable of pumping our streams dry.

I have seen it happen in Fayette County. The pumps are legal, but not taken into consideration, making the impact one of those things we have to contend with. Among other things, fish populations will suffer, endangered species will disappear, and we will wonder why this was allowed to happen. Yet this plan intends to use even more of the water from these same streams!

Another concern I have with the plan involves the level of required monitoring. Monitoring sounds like a good idea; after all, don't we want to know what is happening when the various plans are implemented?

However, an assumption has been made that everything in the plans will work, and the monitoring is designed to show the improvement. There will be miles of new sewer lines and water lines installed, new reservoirs built, new sewer treatment plants built, hundreds of culverts replaced and thousands of additional items costing $9 billion to build and another $15 billion to operate and maintain.

I'll ask again, who do you think is going to pay for this? What are the chances of all of it working? Monitoring should include provisions for what we do when things don't work.

Basic questions regarding monitoring is who collects it, who analyzes it and what is to be done with the results? According to the plan, collecting this data is going to be our job, or better stated, the job of city and county governments requiring developers and the government itself to obtain the data.

Putting it together in some sort of sensible format is to be the job of the district staff, if there is staff. But then what? What will be done with the information when it is collected and sorted?

I think they expect (or hope) that the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) will take action if action is needed.

I have been to the EPD offices that manage water and if we are depending on those offices to do something sensible with this data, we are in for a long wait.

There first has to be an organization that really cares about the environment. Right now their job appears to be finding a way not to become involved, and heaven forbid if someone expects them to make a decision.

There are also environmental concerns with issues of sediment and erosion control, failure to include watershed organizations such as forestry and agricultural concerning near-stream areas. Most utility companies will be exempt from this process and there are others.

The explanation by staff of the Atlanta Regional Commission is that "other state laws apply to these groups." Unfortunately, that logic takes the issue right back to EPD, but with no water district oversight to at least give the appearance of good planning.

As I stated last week, I don't believe that the Georgia General Assembly is receiving a well-conceived plan, and it is going to cost the citizens of this area more in the long run.

[Dennis Chase, now retired, was a fish and wildlife biologist with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service for more than 26 years. Since retiring, he has worked as a consultant for Fayette County on environmental concerns, serves as an officer of the Line Creek Association, and has published numerous newspaper columns.]