By DAVE WILLIAMS
Morris News Service
Oct. 10, 2000 (The Augusta Chronicle)—A panel of political and business leaders recommended recently that the General Assembly create a regional agency to oversee water projects, despite misgivings that its geographic scope wouldn't be large enough.
Members of the Clean Water Initiative voted 25-8 to propose legislation creating a Metro Atlanta Water Planning District. The new agency would plan and coordinate stormwater, wastewater and water- supply projects in 16 counties in the Atlanta region.
While the four river basins that cross through the area extend into other parts of the state, the recommendations limit the district to metro Atlanta because it's where water-quality problems brought about by rapid growth have been most acute, said Bill Dahlberg, chairman and CEO of Southern Co. and the panel's chairman.
"A case could be made to take this up to 28 counties, or even statewide," he said. "But we think this is a logical place to start."
But several task force members said limiting the district to 16 counties would contradict the panel's avowed desire to emphasize watershed-based planning that would take into account water-quality and water-supply concerns throughout the affected river basins.
Bill Byrne, chairman of the Cobb County Commission, added that such a narrow scope also would make it more difficult to gain the cooperation of lawmakers from outside metro Atlanta when it comes to passing the legislation.
Byrne and others also warned that going through the General Assembly to create a water district rather than working it out through agreements between local governments runs the risk that the final product will bear little resemblance to what the task force wants.
Fulton County Commission Chairman Mike Kenn said that's what happened last year when the legislature formed the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, based on the recommendations of a similar panel that met in 1998.
"When it was originally proposed, it was supposed to be comprised of elected officials," he said. "What evolved was an agency that has no elected officials."
Supporters also maintained that using legislation to form the district would make it easier to use the process as a model for future regional water agencies elsewhere in Georgia.
The proposed water district would be governed by a 35-member board, consisting of 19 elected officials and 16 citizen representatives. Dahlberg assured the elected officials on the panel that he would work hard to convince lawmakers to leave it that way.
Others on the task force found fault with that proposed makeup, arguing that representatives of the environmental and academic communities should get more say on the board.
In the end, Dahlberg and other business leaders on the panel pleaded with their colleagues to support the recommendations or face coming away from a process that began in May with no game plan for improving water quality.
The water projects envisioned by the task force would be funded through $2 billion in low-interest loans to local governments that create regional water plans that meet criteria set by the new district and the state. The money would be phased in over four years.
© 2000 The Augusta Chronicle via Bell&Howell Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved.
