Shoal Creek in the Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area is one Upper Etowah River tributary that has been targeted for reservoir development by private companies.
During the same week in late March that turkey hunting season opened, the Georgia General Assembly voted to let loose a whole new species of turkeys in the North Georgia woods—land speculators, strutting about looking to gobble up land for new water supply reservoirs.
Even before the bill that would facilitate public-private water supply projects passed the House by a narrow two-vote margin, reports were already coming out of the North Georgia hills about private companies sweet talking landowners along our creeks and rivers. “Sell to us now,” they said, “and you’ll get top dollar. Wait, and the government is going to take your land by eminent domain for pennies on the dollar.”
The day the bill passed the House, the Dahlonega Nugget published a report documenting such tactics (read the story in the Nugget). Since then, property owners in other parts of North Georgia have called the CRBI office recounting similar stories.
Here’s how our new law could work: a private company pitches a reservoir project to a local government. The local government buys in and together they can go hat-in-hand to the state government for financing.
Ideally, the state agency tasked with doling out the reservoir money, Georgia’s Environmental Facilities Authority, will act judiciously, providing these limited funds for only the most needed and most economically and environmentally feasible projects.
But, the cynic in me says that our state and local public dollars will wind up funding unnecessary water supply projects proposed by politically connected individuals and businesses with one goal in mind—to make money, not to provide essential water.
What’s worse, if the public-private partnership doesn’t seek state funding, here’s what could happen: property taken through eminent domain could be transferred to the private partner and that private partner could then build the reservoir and sell lakefront homes built on the land of the banished original owners. The private company makes money selling water and land.
Unfortunately, a veto of this potentially dangerous new law is unlikely. The proposal has Gov. Deal’s full support because it offers another “tool” to meet Georgia’s seemingly insatiable thirst.
Over the past decade, Georgia has spent millions on state and regional water planning through what has been a very open and public process answering critical questions about how much water we have, how much we need and where we are going to get it.
This sudden injection of private influence could easily de-rail this planning. For instance, in Lumpkin and Dawson counties during the past two years, two reservoir proposals have surfaced that never appear in any state or regional water plans—the Shoal Creek project in Dawson County and the Calhoun Creek project in Lumpkin County (where property owners have been approached with unscrupulous land grabbing tactics).
Private companies—not local governments—are behind both, and it should be noted that neither are intended for use by local residents in Dawson and Lumpkin counties. Instead the water would be sent out of the Etowah River basin to Forsyth County and other portions of Metro Atlanta through massive water diversions—a plan that has repercussions for Lake Allatoona and downstream communities like Canton, Marietta, Cartersville and Rome that depend upon the Etowah River.
We should enter this bold new era in dam building cautiously. We need to weed out the turkeys in the bunch and fund only the projects that make the most sense—for water supply, downstream communities, the health of our rivers and our state’s limited financial resources.
To learn more about the Shoal Creek Reservoir proposal in Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area visit http://www.coosa.org/issues-actions/hot-button-issues
Read an Atlanta Journal Constitution story about this issue.
