Groups want to block Legislature from raiding environmental funds

January 3, 2006
By Lee Shearer
Athens Banner-Herald

Organizations that represent the state's city and county governments have joined with Georgia environmental groups to try to halt the state Legislature's raid of funds that are supposed to be dedicated to protecting the environment.

Since 2003, the Legislature has taken more than $40 million, most of the money in the Georgia Hazardous Waste Fund, created to help clean up abandoned toxic waste sites; the Solid Waste Trust Fund, for cleaning up scrap-tire heaps and litter; and an erosion and sedimentation fund created in 2004 to help slow down erosion and stream pollution caused by development. The legislature left about $24 million in the total $64 million that was collected, according to the Georgia River Network, an Athens-based environmental group.

The money is not taxes, but a combination of fees and fines. Developers pay $80 an acre into the erosion and sedimentation program, for example. The Solid Waste Trust Fund comes from a fee everyone pays when buying new tires, and the Hazardous Waste Trust Fund's money comes from fees charged by landfills to dispose of waste as well as fines hazardous waste generators pay when they violate state laws.

In each case, the legislation creating the fees specified that the money raised would go only for specific environmental purposes, but for the past three years, the Legislature has diverted more than 60 percent of the money into the state's general budget.

The Georgia Municipal Association and the Association County Commissioners of Georgia have opposed the fund diversions since they began in 2003.

"We've had that as a top priority about three years, ever since the first raid," said Tom Gehl of the GMA.

This year, the county commissioners organization has gone a step further, teaming with groups such as the Georgia River Network to try to persuade local governments to endorse a resolution calling on the Legislature to put the money back in the funds.

In December, Oglethorpe became the latest county to endorse the resolution.

"All I want them to do is what the law says they should do," said Oglethorpe County Commission Chairman Robert Johnson.

In taking money out of the trust funds, the Legislature simply has passed costs down to local governments in some instances, Johnson said.

Before the Legislature started removing money from the Solid Waste Trust Fund, Oglethorpe County got a grant to hire a code enforcement officer and furnish a truck for the officer. Citizens got used to having someone enforce environmental laws and other regulations, so the county had to pick up the cost when the Legislature diverted funds and the grants ended, Johnson said.

About $20 million in diversions from the Hazardous Waste Trust Fund have delayed clean-ups of some 59 "orphan" toxic waste sites in the state, said Tim Cash, program manager for the state Environmental Protection Division's Hazardous Sites Response Program.

In such sites, there's no identifiable responsible party for the toxic waste site, or the owner does not have the resources to clean it up. Several such sites are in Northeast Georgia, including the Griffith Oil Co. site in Jackson County, the Winder-Barrow Speedway landfill site, the Athens Grain Elevator/Oakwood Mobile Home Park off Jefferson Road and a site on Wolfskin Road in Oglethorpe County.

The state has had to delay cleanups on several sites, and the longer the delay, the more the eventual cost, Cash said

"It gets more expensive the longer you wait," he said.

The funding cuts also have slowed down the agency's ability to supervise privately funded cleanups, he said, as well as the pace of redeveloping brownfield sites, which can be cleaned up and then returned to the tax base as developable properties.

Restoring the funds is especially important in Georgia, where the state government does not spend much money on environmental protection, said Todd Edwards, associate legislative director of the ACCG.

But with tax collections up this year, Edwards said he's hopeful the Legislature will restore funding to the programs.

"It's not like we're asking for anything new. We're just asking for these monies to be directed where they're supposed to go, " he said.

Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 010306