Rep. Meadows Says Water Management Plan Has Holes

By Lori Yount, Chattanooga Times/Free Press, Tenn.

Nov. 4–Georgia Rep. John Meadows, R-Calhoun, is the vice chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and went last week with fellow legislators to a reading of the state Water Council’s reading of the Georgia water management plan.

Tuesday was the deadline for public comment, and he said he heard few changes to the plan since the version released in September. After another round of public hearings this month, the final version of the plan, which has been in the works since 2004, is due out in December.

With a drought of historic proportion gripping much of the state, lawmakers have said a water plan is a top priority for the legislative session that begins in January. If no definitive action is taken on the plan this session, it automatically goes into effect in July. Rep. Meadows offered his views about the plan so far.

Q: What questions do you have about the plan?

A: I think everybody needs a water plan. But I don’t know if our plan has taken into consideration, really, three items… One is, we’re going to grow. If we have a limited number of resources for water, what are we going to do? That leads up to the other two.

How are we going to get water? I don’t care how much you conserve, if we have same growth in the next 10 years that we’ve had in last 10 years, we’re going to have 9 million more people in this state, and we’ve got the same amount of water. We’ve got to find new sources. And those new sources, I don’t know of many more, but you’ve got desalination, which is taking water from ocean and turning into pure water — take the salt out, and you’ve got to augment the water supply.

Augment the water supply is nothing more than you’ve got to find a new source. And the new source, there’s not but one place we can get it out of North Georgia, and that’s out of the Tennessee River. And I’m not so sure we shouldn’t be making some sort of arrangements to withdraw “X” amount of water out of the Tennessee. Where is the water going to come from? The state of Georgia is the supply point for the Tennessee River.

Those things aren’t mentioned. Desalination is mentioned in one place. I think there just needs to be a little bit more (in the plan) about our growth and what we’re going to do.

Q: What do you think it means for North Georgia specifically?

A: The problems I see for North Georgia are that we are the supply for both regions, whether it be Coosa region or whether it be the Chattahoochee.

Hey, people in Atlanta got to have water…. If Atlanta uses all the water, what about Columbus? You’ve got to get water back in the river. In rural counties that’s going to be tough because they don’t have sewer systems throughout the county. It’s awfully expensive to run sewer. But, then again, you have water lines run everywhere and that water goes in the septic tank. We’re rural, so that doesn’t cause a major problem, but you get down into Atlanta, you should not allow any building at all that doesn’t have some kind of sewer.

Somebody gave us figure yesterday of how many homes that were built on quarter-acre acre lots that have a septic system. That water never gets back to a river. That’s going to have to be addressed for our rivers and streams. Less water is in them, and that means less water going to be in those lakes, whether it be Lake Allatoona or Lake Lanier.

Q: Do you think the plan addresses interbasin transfers enough?

A: What they put in there is probably satisfactory. They do address the problem. You don’t want to do interbasin transfers unless they’re absolutely necessary, and that’s basically what the plan says. If we’ve got people that don’t have water, we’re going to have to transfer it from somewhere, and we’ve got to give them the right to do that.

It’d be nice to get water back into the basin it came from, but I don’t know how you’re going to do that.

Q: Do you think the plan is something you and your fellow legislators are willing to pass or will it need a lot more work?

A: I think the House wants more in that plan. What you always have to be careful of is that if we pass something, make changes, it’s got to go to the Senate. But, I don’t know where Senate stands on this.

The next part of that is, if they are willing to make more additions to the plan, or expand the plan some, it’s still got to go through the governor’s office, and he has the right to veto anything we do. And, the way it’s drawn up, it would fall back on this would still be the plan (if changes aren’t approved by Gov. Sonny Perdue).

It’s an uphill battle, but I hope there’s common ground. Because we do need a water plan, and I don’t particularly like this one. I’d like to see it expanded some, but it’s an uphill battle to make changes in something that’s kind of already set.

E-mail Lori Yount at lyount@timesfreepress.com

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