By CHARLES SEABROOK
ATLANTA, Ga., Oct. 5, 2000 (The Atlanta Constitution)—An influential group of regional business and political leaders voted Wednesday to ask the state Legislature to create a Metro Atlanta Water Planning District to tackle the region's water quality crisis.
Members of the Clean Water Initiative task force approved the measure, 28-6. The aim of the quasi-governmental organization, they said, is to oversee planning for water supply, stormwater control and sewage treatment in 16 metro Atlanta counties that share the region's four watersheds.
Other counties would be allowed to join voluntarily.
"The end result is to clean up the water of this region," said task force co-chairman Bill Dahlberg, chairman and chief executive of the Southern Co., parent of Georgia Power.
The district would be run by a 35-member board — 19 elected officials and 16 members of the public. The Atlanta Regional Commission would assist in drawing up the water plans and performing other staff duties.
The need is urgent, the task force members said. The state is under a federal consent decree to set pollution limits in streams and rivers, which is expected to result in more stringent treatment of wastewater and stormwater control. The cost for metro Atlanta may be as high as $4 billion.
Within one year, the district would be required to:
Develop a model ordinance and plan to control pollution from stormwater runoff throughout the 16-county area.
Draw up a short-term plan to increase sewage treatment capacity to ease immediate demands.
The state would be asked to appropriate an undetermined sum to get the district up and running. The operation cost of the district would be about $3 million a year, which would be shared by the state and local governments. A $2 billion "Clean Water Loan/Bond Fund" would be established to help local governments build new sewage treatment plants and other facilities to prevent water pollution.
The district would have no regulatory or enforcement authority. Instead, enforcement would come from the state Environmental Protection Division, which could deny wastewater discharge or water withdrawal permits for counties and municipalities that don't conform to the plan.
The 37-member task force — three of its members were absent Wednesday and did not vote — was formed in May by the Metro Atlanta Chamber and the Regional Business Coalition. Wednesday's agreement came after five months of discussions to define the region's water pollution woes and determine how to tackle them.
The discussion preceding the vote was marked by heated dissent on some portions of the proposal. Many of the objections came from board members who are county commission chairmen — Wayne Hill of Gwinnett, Mike Kenn of Fulton and Bill Byrne of Cobb. They said the legislation to create the district might be greatly revised as it moves through the General Assembly, and local officials could lose some of their authority as a result.
They cited the creation of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority by the 1999 Legislature to address the region's traffic and air pollution woes. "When GRTA was originally proposed, its board was supposed to be composed only of elected officials," Kenn said. "What we have is a GRTA board of no elected officials."
Some task force members also objected to a provision that would require the state Department of Natural Resources to approve regional water plans. Hill, the Gwinnett commission chairman, said he fears the DNR would add a layer of bureaucracy.
©Copyright 2000 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
