Bad Government: The Biggest Threat to Our Rivers

Morning on the Coosa River in Rome, Georgia.

Another session of the Georgia General Assembly ended March 29 with Georgia’s environment emerging from the affair relatively unscathed.

Unfortunately, proactive measures like regulating the practice of moving water from one river basin to another (interbasin transfers)  and ending the General Assembly’s time-honored tradition of raiding the state’s Hazardous Waste and Solid Waste Trust Funds to fill gaps in other portions of the budget did not muster enough support for passage, leaving me pondering why: Why is it so difficult to enact laws to better protect Georgia’s rivers?

It’s easy to blame the current political climate—one in which environmental protections are dismissed as “job killers.” Certainly, this is oft-heard rhetoric from Georgia’s ruling party.

But the real reason has a lot less to do with one’s feelings about the environment or one’s political affiliation, and a whole lot more to do with the way our government, and its leaders, do business. Bad government is a bigger threat to our rivers and land than the ugliest discharge from a polluting factory.

If legislation to better regulate interbasin transfers (IBT) could reach the floor of the House and Senate, the votes are there to pass the measure. Unfortunately, state leadership, heavily influenced by Metro Atlanta’s growth industry, has kept all IBT bills bottled up.

Those bills do one thing—they would change language found in existing IBT laws so that the laws would be enforceable. Something they are not now, leaving citizens, citizen groups or effected downstream communities at the mercy of the state’s executive branch which has sole authority to approve or deny IBTs.

Good government allows citizens to be part of the check and balance system; but to date, when it comes to IBTs, state leaders, including the Deal administration, have steadfastly refused citizens that right.

The sordid story of our Hazardous Waste and Solid Waste Trust Funds is yet another tale of bad government. These Funds are generated when citizens and businesses purchase new tires for vehicles or dump trash at a local landfill. The collections are supposed to be used to clean up hazardous waste sites and fund local programs to address solid waste problems.

Sunset on the Etowah River at the Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site near Cartersville.

Since 2004, the General Assembly has stolen 60 percent of the Hazardous Waste Trust Fund fees—more than $86 million—and 66 percent of the Solid Waste Trust Fund fees—more than $37 million—using the money to pay for other portions of the state budget.

It’s the equivalent of buying a washing machine from your local appliance mart and  then having the delivery guys show up with a washboard and tub. In the private sector, it’s fraud, but in state government its business as usual. Said Senate Rules Committee Chairman Don Balfour to the Atlanta Journal Constitution: “We have been doing this for 20 years, and I still keep getting re-elected.”

Want more examples of bad government? look no further than the Governor’s Water Supply Program. The Governor refused to allow conservation projects (the most cost-effective water supply projects) to be eligible for funding under his $300 million funding program, and now it appears one of the projects first in line for funding will be a dubious reservoir project in Hall County…the Governor’s home county.

With shenanigans like this, it’s no wonder we have bad government, and it’s no wonder our state struggles to protect our rivers.

Shopping Centers Can Go Anywhere, But Wetlands Can’t Be Replaced

A recent editorial printed in the Rome News-Tribune characterized the City of Rome’s Burwell Creek property opposite Ridge Ferry Park along Riverside Parkway as a “blighted landscape,” the creek itself as flowing “with toxic-laden waters” and the extensive wetlands on the site as a “creekside bog.”

The Burwell Creek wetlands, even after moderate rains, hold a tremendous amount of water.

The editorial concluded that the best use of such property was to fill it in and put up a shopping center to cover up this ugliness. And, currently that’s exactly what city leaders have planned for the site.

If you’ve never spent any time on the Burwell Creek property, if you’ve never tested the chemical and biological health of Burwell Creek, if you’ve never reviewed the reams of data documenting the relative lack of pollution in the old city landfill on the

property, you might agree with such a conclusion.

But, the Coosa River Basin Initiative’s staff, board of directors and members have done all these things and we draw an entirely different conclusion.

For the past 10 years, we have periodically tested the health of Burwell Creek, we have collected sediment from the creek and had it analyzed for t

oxic substances, we have thoroughly reviewed data that details what pollution might be found on this property and we have documented the property in drought and in flood.

No other entity in Rome can make that claim. Ledbetter Properties, the local business that has thus far spent more than $1 million on its Citi Center project, has yet to drop a dime to have Burwell Creek tested to determine if it is “polluted,” but that claim has been central to their plan to

“save” Rome from the pollution that is presumed to leach from the old city landfill on the site.

The Rome City Commission, for its part, loves this project and turns a blind eye to the facts. They fear that someday state or federal environmental regulators will force a local taxpayer-funded clean up of the old landfill. That notion is laughable. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has labeled the site NFRAP—no further

remedial action planned, and the same agency has refused to sponsor the project as a “Brownfield” redevelopment—a designation reserved for polluted industrial waste sites. The environmental regulators—so feared by the Commission—have concluded that the landfill is not a serious threat to our environment or our community.

A beaver dam floods the Burwell Creek wetlands. During periods of high water, this site can be under more than nine feet of water. A 60-acre retail center has been proposed for this site.

Is the Burwell Creek property a pristine oasis—a place of such beauty that it is worthy of special designation? As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but we do know this: these wetlands and the adjacent floodplain forests perform important functions for our community. They store floodwater when our rivers rise, preventing destruction elsewhere; they filter pollutants keeping them out of our river (our drinking water sources) and they provide important habitat for wildlife. A visit to the Burwell Creek property will invariably turn up a deer, beaver or fox and a host of waterfowl and songbirds.

We also know that the city has considered using the property as a place for walking trails and wildlife viewing areas—a way to connect Rome’s premiere park, Ridge Ferry, with the highlands of Jackson Hill where local bicyclists and runners have already teamed up with the city to create recreational paths. What more could our community do if we preserved the natural corridor through the Burwell Creek wetlands?

Of course, this is not a choice between protecting land and water and bolstering the economy with new tax revenue and jobs. We can accomplish both. There’s lot of places to build a shopping center; wetlands, on the other hand, can’t be replaced and they can’t be found just any where.

The City’s Burwell Creek property is not a “blighted” landscape; it is a green swath of trees and water and wildlife in the heart of our community that performs valuable services for us. It is worth preserving.

CRBI will host a “Wetlands Walk” through the Burwell Creek floodplain and wetlands on Monday, April 2, at 6 p.m. Call 706-232-2724 for details. Learn more about this issue.

Paulding County Dam Plan Full of Holes

Paulding County’s Richland Creek Reservoir has been a decade in the making, and based on the opposition generated from the county’s most recent iteration of its coveted water supply project, the County should do some soul-searching as to its most sustainable water supply options before it commits to building a new dam.

In December and January, the County’s reservoir plan was poked, prodded and picked apart by federal agencies, neighboring governments and a host of conservation organizations during a mandatory public comment period.

This map shows 11 completed and proposed water supply reservoirs in the Etowah River Basin. The Richland Creek reservoir would be built along the Paulding-Bartow county line and would be filled with water pumped from the Etowah River downstream from Lake Allatoona.

Those groups delivered page upon page of largely negative comments opposing the project to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). The City of Rome requested that the Corps hold a public hearing and demanded environmental studies to determine the reservoir’s impact on the downstream water users (including Rome). The City of Cartersville said the project would have a “severe adverse effect on the Etowah and…potential growth” in Cartersville. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service recommended denial of the permit until a study was conducted to determine the cumulative impacts of the multiple water supply reservoirs that are currently planned in the Etowah River Basin.

Now, the Corps must sift through this information and determine whether Paulding’s plans pass the muster. If they do, Paulding will receive its long-sought-after permit that will allow the $75 million, 305-acre project along the Paulding-Bartow county line to move forward.

Logic leads one to conclude that the permit will be denied for the application is full of holes. In the application, Paulding’s leaders contend this project is urgent. By 2035, they claim rapid population growth will demand 47 million gallons per day (MGD), and they claim that uncertainty over future withdrawals from Lake Allatoona—the county’s current water source—demand construction of this reservoir.

Raccoon Creek, just west of Richland Creek in Paulding County, is the site of a major restoration effort in which The Nature Conservancy and other partners are working to improve habitat for federally protected fish species, including the Cherokee darter. The Richland Creek project would detroy an isolated population of Cherokee darters.

The reality is Paulding’s growth has slowed dramatically. Housing starts dropped to 132 in 2011, compared with 3,070 in 2005. From 2000-2010, some 5,482 residents moved to the county each year, but projections used to justify this project predict growth of more than 14,000 residents per year for the next decade—absurd figures under current conditions. The county’s 2035 population projections of 445,000 are therefore likely bloated by some 130,000; a miscalculation that inflates water demand by 30 percent.

Furthermore, the county’s plan to use the water it currently has more efficiently is poorly developed and highly suspect. County water use figures show that indoor household water use averages 66 gallons per day per resident, but a water efficient household only uses 45 gallons per resident per day. If the county achieved this level of efficiency, it could realize indoor water savings of 32 percent and reduce county-wide water use by as much as 20 percent. This would significantly reduce the need for the proposed reservoir and its related expense.

With the more realistic population projections and more efficient water use, Paulding County’s real 2035 water demand could be as little as 24 MGD—not the 47 MGD predicted.

Finally, Paulding’s contention that Lake Allatoona is an unreliable source due to ongoing litigation between Georgia and Alabama makes the case to delay action on this project—not blindly press forward.

In its application, the county contends that the amount of water available from Lake Allatoona cannot be determined, and based on this uncertainty, the county assumes that no additional water withdrawals will be available. That is a false assumption.

The outcome of the litigation may well result in increased water withdrawals from Lake Allatoona. If that’s the case, Paulding’s taxpayers could be on the hook for a $75 million project that would go down in history as a “dam to nowhere.”

Logic and fiscal prudence would lead most observers to step away from this plan and pursue more cost-effective water efficiency options, but alas, those admirable qualities have been lacking in Georgia’s water planning as of late.

Tax Dollars Wasted On Reservoirs; Water Efficiency Gets Stiffed

The Etowah River in Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area could be impacted by a proposed 1200-acre reservoir on Shoal Creek.

In January, Gov. Nathan Deal charged a task force made up of seven state agency heads with the job of figuring out how to best spend $300 million to increase the state’s water supplies.

The charge included a mandate to “align state financial support for critical, cost-effective water supply projects.” After some six months of deliberations, the Task Force has concluded that the most cost-effective water supply projects available to the state—water conservation and efficiency measures–should NOT be eligible for funding under this initiative.

If this leaves you scratching your head, you’ll be even more puzzled when you hear the explanation: The lead agency on the Task Force, the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority (GEFA), explains that funding for such projects is already available and is not being fully utilized by local governments and water providers.

However, a quick check of GEFA records show that the agency has made $65 million in loans for conservation projects in the last five years—at a time when local governments are reluctant to take on any new debt. Clearly, local governments are interested in water efficiency.

But instead of allowing local governments and water providers the opportunity to identify the best projects for their communities—be they replacing water-wasting toilets or building a reservoir, the Task Force has instead placed priority on multi-million dollar reservoirs, ensuring that our tax dollars will go to lobbyists, lawyers, engineers and real estate interests that are the first in line to benefit from reservoir investments.

Two projects that will likely line up at the trough for this funding—Glades Reservoir in Hall County and Shoal Creek Reservoir in Dawson County—have a combined estimated price tag of $950 million. They will—if current yield studies prove accurate (and this is highly questionable)—produce 160 million gallons a day for metro Atlanta communities.

A lot of water, to be sure, but that same water can be secured through conservation measures at a fraction of the cost. A recent analysis of water conservation opportunities in metro Atlanta by Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper shows that the region could secure as much as 160 million gallons a day through just three conservation measures.

In 2010, Georgia adopted the Water Stewardship Act which mandated a modest list of statewide conservation measures. Among them was a requirement for local water providers to assess the amount of water leaking from their distribution pipes. The first of those reports are due to the state in January, but to date, the state has not dedicated any funding to help locals fix their leaks.

While the pipes continue to leak—often at a rate of more than one out of every four gallons—the state deems it “cost-effective” to invest millions in reservoir projects, only to have that expensive water pumped to systems where it will be spilled on the ground.

That’s not just bad business; it’s plain dumb

Gov. Deal and the Task Force need to go back to square one and allow communities choosing conservation to compete side-by-side with reservoir developers for a slice of this $300 million taxpayer pie.

GEFA is accepting public comments on the Governor’s Water Supply Program through Dec. 5 at http://www.georgiawatersupply.org/links/public-comment

Warning: If you don’t want to get angry, don’t read this…

Deer forage on the City Duck Pond, part of 60 acres of wetlands and floodplain that is slated for development as a regional shopping center.

In the recent blog about the Georgia Water Coalition’s Dirty Dozen we noted how the various corporate polluters on the Dirty Dozen list are examples of the national discontent over the failure of the American political-economic system that has come under fire from groups as diverse as the Occupy Wall Street protestors and the Tea Party.

Sadly, here in Rome we have a shining example of the failed system that has generated so much national anger. It is the story of 60 acres of land bisected by Burwell Creek that sits at the corner of Turner McCall Drive and Riverside Parkway. The story includes tales of a federal bureaucracy overstepping its authority, of laws manipulated by insiders and of ordinary citizens getting the shaft. Warning: If you don’t want get angry; read no further.

Best known as the home of the “Duck Pond,” the Burwell Creek Property is the only land in the Turner McCall/Shorter Ave. corridor that remains undeveloped. As you might guess, its location at a major intersection makes it highly valuable in the eyes of commercial developers. If it did not sit squarely in the floodplain and contain acres of wetlands as well as an abandoned city landfill, it would have been developed long ago.

Because of these unique conditions everyone assumed the land would remain in its current forested state—especially given that it sits between the city’s premiere park (Ridge Ferry Park) and historic Jackson Hill, another city-owned greenspace. In the late 1980s, the city had plans to create additional wetlands and wildlife habitat on the property. In fact, the Federal Highway Administration approved the widening of Riverside Parkway, in part, because it believed the wetlands and floodplain on the property would remain.

Fast forward to 2001 when the city commissioned a study of its Jackson Hill property, looking at how to use the land as a city park. The study recommended the creation of a “Central Park” stretching from Jackson Hill, through the Burwell Creek property, and on to Ridge Ferry Park.

But in 2005, local developer, Ledbetter Properties, approached the city with a plan to build a shopping center on the land. It was a bold—some might say far-fetched—proposal given the environmental issues associated with the property. Nevertheless, the City Commission approved the plan and Ledbetter Properties was set loose to obtain federal environmental permits that would make the development possible.

The company spent more than $1 million and three years later secured the permits. Here’s where the story takes an interesting turn. Ordinarily, if a developer is building on top of more than a half acre of wetlands or is disturbing more than 300 feet of streams, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) allows the public to review the development plans.

This project involved filling four acres of wetlands and relocating more than 2700 feet of Burwell Creek—all of it on publicly-owned land—yet the Corps approved this project without ever notifying the public. No one—not even an elected city official or city staff member, had the opportunity to review plans prior to the Corps’ approval.

What’s more, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), which reviewed Ledbetter Properties’ permit application, advised the Corps that a public notice and comment period should be required and questioned whether the project should be classified as a “Brownfield”—a status that would provide tax benefits to the developer because of existing environmental contamination associated with the old city landfill.

This excerpt from a May 2008 letter from EPA to the Corps of Engineers shows EPA's objection to the classification of this project as a Brownfield redevelopment.

Inexplicably, the Corps not only approved the project without public input, it approved it based on the assumption that USEPA was “sponsoring” the project as a Brownfield re-development.

How this happened remains something of a puzzle, but perhaps it’s another story to which America’s angry millions can relate: the “system” gets manipulated; a federal agency is unresponsive to the public and a public asset is converted for corporate gain—and the corporation gets a tidy tax break too boot.

With this going on, it’s no wonder we’re mad. It’s time the feds listened to ordinary Romans, including the more than 1000 that have signed a petition opposing this project. Anyone for a tea party at Burwell Creek or an Occupy Wetlands encampment?

Dirty Dozen: No Wonder We’re Mad

From Occupy Wall Street to the Tea Party, Americans are fed up with the “system.” We’re tired of the big government bureaucracy that doesn’t deliver the services we expect; we’re tired of powerful insiders getting the big piece of pie while the rest of us get the crumbs. These sentiments run the gamut of the political spectrum. Be ye liberal or conservative, it seems now is the time of our discontent.

In working with other members of the Georgia Water Coalition to develop our first-ever Dirty Dozen—a list of the most egregious offenses to our state’s water (http://www.garivers.org/gawater/dirtydozen.htm), I was struck by the number on this list that serve as perfect illustrations of our current national discontent:

Rayonier's 50 million gallon a day discharge to the Altamaha turns the river chocolate colored.

In South Georgia, a pulp mill operated by Rayonier has been fouling the Altamaha River for more than a half a century, destroying fisheries and dramatically changing the character of the river. Meanwhile, the government bureaucracy charged with protecting us and our rivers makes feeble attempts to correct the problem.

Thus far in 2011, Rayonier reports net profits of $220 million. But, the angler who lands a bass from the Altamaha can’t eat it because its flesh reeks of the paper mill.

The proposed Shoal Creek Reservoir project in the Upper Etowah River Basin is promoted by the local Etowah Water and Sewer Authority in partnership with the water utility giant, American Water. The company had revenue of $2.7 billion in 2010. Undoubtedly, Shoal Creek would be another revenue stream for the company, but at the expense of endangered fish and river flows for downstream communities.

Plant Hammond uses 590 million gallons a day from the Coosa River.

On the Coosa, Georgia Power has harnessed the river at Plant Hammond since 1954 to generate electricity, but to the detriment of water quality. It still uses the same out-dated, water-hogging cooling system from the 1950s. In 2010, the company enjoyed earnings of $950 million.

Is it any wonder folks are mad? Why is it OK for citizens to get dirty water when companies responsible for the dirty water make billions?

CRBI’s ongoing battle over a proposed 60-acre shopping center on environmentally-sensitive, citizen-owned land in Rome (http://www.coosa.org/issues-actions/hot-button-issues/romes-central-park) serves as yet another indictment of the “system.”

Here, a federal agency inexplicably issued a permit for the project without a public notice or a public comment period. The system worked great for a private developer, but ordinary citizens got the shaft.

Making money is a good thing; at CRBI we celebrate every successful fundraiser. But making money at the expense of the very resources and the communities that provide that income? That’s wrong. We need to right these wrongs and that starts with some well-placed anger.

Dams To Nowhere–Reservoir Projects Drain Public Cofers, Rivers

A Native American fish weir on the Etowah River in Cherokee County. During low flow periods of the summer and early fall these ancient structures are exposed.

In recent months, reservoirs proposed in the Upper Etowah River Basin have gotten much media attention, and with good reason. The proposed Shoal Creek and Calhoun Creek reservoirs in Dawson and Lumpkin counties should be watched closely by all downstream who depend upon the Etowah River and by every taxpayer in the state.

You’ve heard of the infamous “bridge to nowhere;” these reservoirs might well be viewed in the same light—dams to nowhere that epitomize wasteful use of public dollars.

The price tag for the proposed 1200-acre Shoal Creek reservoir in Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area is $650 million—more than four times the cost of the recently completed Hickory Log Reservoir in the Etowah River Basin. The smaller Calhoun Creek project is estimated to cost $150 million.

Yes, both projects will leverage investment from private companies, but you can bet these private companies will come after state loans that have been made available with the passage of legislation earlier this year that enables public-private reservoir partnerships. In fact, right now a task force commissioned by Gov. Nathan Deal is working on a system for doling out more than $300 million that will be made available to such projects over the next four years.

Calhoun Creek, which runs along the Dawson/Lumpkin county line and empties into the Etowah River, has attracted the attention of a private reservoir company looking to cash in on the state's new public-private reservoir partnership initiative.

But, you ask, aren’t we in dire need of more water? Aren’t such investments justified?

That depends on the outcome of ongoing litigation over the use of the big federal reservoirs—Allatoona and Lanier—and even more importantly, how efficiently we use the supplies that are currently available to us.

If Georgia gains a reasonable use of Allatoona and Lanier the need for most of these proposed reservoirs evaporates. And, if Georgia invests in fixing its leaking pipes, replacing old water-wasting toilets, fixtures and appliances and using our water wisely we can greatly extend our supplies—and at a fraction of the cost of building new dams.

Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division has determined that conservation and efficiency measures cost from $0.46 to $250 for every 1000 gallons saved. Building a reservoir, on the otherhand, can cost $4000 for every 1000 gallons. The Shoal Creek project tallies out at over $8000 for every 1000 gallons.

In other words, don’t buy the Cadillac when a Chevy will get you to the same place.

Each day, in communities across Georgia millions of gallons of water leak from pipes before ever reaching a customer—in some communities the losses amount to more than one out of every four gallons.

Yet, rather than placing a priority on stopping leaks and making more efficient use of our water, it appears our state will instead invest millions on high ticket reservoirs to pump water to those still leaking pipes and water-wasting plumbing fixtures. That’s just bad business.

But, these dams don’t stop at draining public coffers; they’ll also drain our rivers. As proposed the Shoal Creek project would remove up to 100 million a day (MGD) from the Etowah and pipe it to other portions of Metro Atlanta via an interbasin transfer. That’s more than five times the amount that is currently diverted from the Etowah.

To put it in perspective, the average flow on the Etowah River near the site of the proposed reservoir during the low-flow month of September is just 121 MGD. Even during the high flows of the winter, the Etowah tops out at an average of 372 MGD.

Mining for gold in the Upper Etowah is a popular hobby, but today's most ambitious Etowah prospectors are the private reservoir companies searching for public dollars to build their dams.

The private companies that want to profit off these reservoirs will tell you that their projects will help “regulate” flows downstream and insure water even during drought, but that is a tall task when the water removed from the system is never returned. You simply can’t divert 25 percent or more of the river’s flow each day and still maintain flows that mimic natural and healthy conditions.

Unfortunately, current state law makes it very difficult for communities downstream to stop these water diversion projects once state environmental regulators approve them. Thus, now is the time for those in Canton, Marietta, Dallas, Cartersville and Rome (all communities who depend on the Etowah) to be vigilant and say “No” to these money- wasting, river-draining proposals.

These projects are dams to nowhere. Until we get our fiscal house (and the water closet inside it) in order, they are pure folly.