What’s next for Georgia in ongoing water war?
Local and state officials in Georgia are scrambling for ideas after a federal judge ruled July 17 that the U.S. Corps of Engineers has been illegally rerouting water from Lake Lanier to meet the drinking water needs of Metro Atlanta.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson ordered the Lanier withdrawal levels to remain at their current level – but not increase – for three years to give congressional lawmakers a chance to work out a compromise.
If there is no political solution after that time, Magnuson’s order goes into effect and Metro Atlanta will no longer be allowed to use Lanier as its primary water source.
“Only Gainesville and Buford will be allowed to withdraw water from the lake,” Magnuson said in the order. “The court recognizes that this is a draconian result. It is, however, the only result that recognizes how far the operation of the Buford [Dam] project has strayed from the original authorization.”
Gov. Sonny Perdue, along with Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, and other elected officials, announced Thursday the state will take “a multi-pronged attack” on the issue, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported.
Before making the announcement, Perdue met at the Governor’s Mansion with 130 lawmakers and other prominent officials in a closed door session to discuss what to do about the water issue.
From the AJC’s “Political Insider” Jim Galloway (his post has a complete list of who attended the closed-door meeting):
Perdue called the meeting “very productive.” He spoke of an immediate appeal, and “a contingency plan of other supply, other storage capabilities.”
But the governor again insisted that the real fight lay in Congress. And he called on the Georgia delegation “to nationalize this issue to make sure all Congress understands that this is not just an issue that affects the Chattahoochee basin.”
Expect some push-back from members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican, who might not see the wisdom of winning a fight by making it larger.
Perdue picked Georgia Power President and CEO Michael Garrett to lead the “multi-pronged impact team.” Galloway noted Garrett served as the top contact between Georgia Power and the Alabama legislature and governor’s office. “You can presume that Garrett knows something of the Alabama side of the water argument,” Galloway wrote.
Galloway also noted Garrett’s appointment is interesting because The Southern Company, which owns Georgia Power, operates a nuclear power plant on the Alabama side of the Chattahoochee River.
The World Resources Institute (WRI), an environmental think tank, said in a May 2009 report, “Water for Watts,” that public officials in the Southeast should recognize the relationship between conserving energy and conserving water.
“Electric power production in the Southeast draws about 40 billion gallons of water daily (65 percent of total freshwater withdrawals)—about equal to the freshwater withdrawals for public supply across the entire country,” the report said.
“Meanwhile, the energy needed nationally to treat water and wastewater can account for a more than 30 percent of municipal energy costs and an average home can spend upwards of $250 per year on energy needed for hot water.”
The WRI worked with the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance and Southface to identify opportunities to advance solutions that address energy and water problems simultaneously.
“Nearly two out of every three gallons of freshwater withdrawals in the Southeast are sent to electric power plants to meet cooling water demands,” WRI says. “About a gallon of water is consumed for each kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity produced.”
“Energy efficiency gains and investments in power supplies that use less water help ensure adequate energy and water resources.”
The Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority (GEFA) board of directors on Tuesday approved $43.1 million for 26 environmental infrastructure project loans to help finance water and sewer infrastructure projects in 24 communities.
Twenty-three of the projects were either fully or partially funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which kicked in $39 million of the total.
“The federal water and sewer programs administered by GEFA assist local governments with improving their environmental infrastructure,” GEFA Executive Director Phil Foil said in a press release. “Financing water and sewer projects encourages economic growth and the stewardship of our environment.”
ARRA contains a sizable investment in the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF), a federal loan program administered by GEFA for wastewater infrastructure and water pollution abatement projects, as well as the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF), a federal loan program administered by GEFA for water infrastructure projects.
The stimulus also orders the states to reserve 20 percent of ARRA funding for “…projects to address green infrastructure, water or energy efficiency improvements, or other environmentally innovative activities.”
“Investment in infrastructure creates jobs, promotes economic development, and increases our citizens’ quality of life,” Gov. Perdue said in the same release. “Improving public health and safety is critical to a community’s economic growth and prosperity.”
GEFA describes how the funding works in its release:
Under the ARRA financing terms adopted by the GEFA board of directors, cities, or counties that are OneGeorgia-eligible qualify for a 70 percent subsidy. Cities or counties that are not OneGeorgia-eligible qualify for a 40 percent subsidy. Cities or counties with eligible green projects qualify for a 60 percent subsidy. For example, if a OneGeorgia-eligible community applies for a $1 million loan, then 70 percent of the loan will be forgiven and the community will close on a 20-year loan of $300,000 at a three percent interest rate. OneGeorgia-eligible communities are located outside the state’s metropolitan areas and have a population of 50,000 or less with a poverty rate of ten percent or greater. The unprecedented amounts of subsidy in the ARRA financing terms will help Georgia meet the ARRA’s short-term goals of job creation and economic stimulus.
Georgia local governments expressed a tremendous amount of interest in the ARRA funds. Cities and counties submitted more than 1,600 clean water, drinking water, and green projects with a total cost exceeding $6 billion. Total available funding for projects through the ARRA is $144 million. Funding is obligated to projects on a first-come-first-served basis.
GEFA’s announcement came on the same day the City of Atlanta issued a release asking citizens to continue conserving water even though the state lifted severe restrictions on water use on June 10 when it declared the drought officially over.
Perdue balked Thursday when Creative Loafing asked if he would consider asking state lawmakers to introduce legislation encouraging conservation or setting mandates.
““The fact is, we cannot conserve ourselves back to 1975 standards,” Perdue told Creative Loafing. “We demonstrated as a state that we have a culture of conservation…When we undid the drought act, the numbers didn’t automatically come back…Why should we think about mandates in the very first act to do something like this?”