Perdue stresses need for data on water usage
* A member of Georgia's water council says some solutions to ensure watersupplies can polarize communities.

by Dave Williams
Albany Herald

April 29, 2005

ATHENS - Georgia's first statewide water management plan will give policy-makers the information they need to overcome regional fears and prejudices, Gov. Sonny Perdue said Monday.

Several hundred academic researchers, water policy officials and environmental advocates began a three-day conference on water issues at the University of Georgia, the first since a new state water council created to develop the plan began its work.

"Water can be an emotional topic, a very parochial topic," Perdue told the attendees during a keynote address. "(But) it's imperative to make public policy decisions based on good data, good facts and good knowledge."

The water council - composed of eight state agency heads, four legislators and two citizen members - was created by the General Assembly last year.

The panel, which held its first quarterly meeting last month, has until July 2007 to find ways to ensure that Georgia's water supplies keep pace with the state's rapid population growth without further degrading water quality. The plan council members come up with would be submitted to the Legislature during the 2008 session.

Carol Couch, director of the state Environmental Protection Division and a member of the council, said several factors will make its task daunting.

First, most of the nearly 4 million people expected to be added to Georgia's population in the next 25 years will live in parts of the state where water supplies and water quality already are being strained: metro Atlanta, the coastal counties and the cities along the Fall Line.

Also, said Couch, some potential solutions that have been talked about have done more to tear apart decision-makers than bring them together by stirring fears outside of the metro region that Atlanta can't solve its water problems without harming those areas.

As an example, Couch cited "inter-basin transfers," moving water from river basins where water supplies are adequate to other basins where water is in demand. Opposition has been so intense as to make transfers a political nonstarter, she said.

"Mention inter-basin transfers in parts of Georgia other than Atlanta, and the reaction is like waving a red flag at a charging bull," she said. "(The plan) cannot be a document that perpetuates polarization."

While the statewide plan might not involve significant inter-basin transfers, Couch said it must include new reservoirs. But increasing supplies won't be enough without Georgia getting more aggressive about water conservation, she said.

Deborah Sheppard, executive director of Altamaha Riverkeeper, an environmental organization based on the coast, praised Couch for emphasizing conservation. But her group opposes building reservoirs, which hold water upstream and reduce flows to fragile coastal estuaries.

"Reservoirs are like power plants. They need customers," she said. "If you keep building supplies ... it runs counter to conservation."